Poem Written Shortly After Leaving the Morgue

for M. John

No Seventh Seal

No game of chess

Just a sign by the building’s entrance

Announcing the Hours of Identification

From 9:00 to 5:00

And the computer screen

Turned discretely my way

To enable the speedy display

Of your bloated visage

Pixilated and distorted

Just like an internet meme

Almost beyond recognition

Identification seems pointless

As you've fled the jurisdiction
Where Habeas Corpus has no effect 

Now a poet

May do well

To deny death’s dominion

But setting verbal niceties aside

I see no point in denial

When it comes to such vast holdings

Which extend to the far horizon and  

Now include yet another dear brother
On a slab in this Midtown necropolis

*  *  *  *  *

Yesterday I was charged with the responsibility of identifying a friend’s body in the medical examiner’s office, which served as the prompt for this poem.   From the garden on Sunday to the morgue on Monday, a poet is well advised to travel with a pad and pen close at hand, in order to keep a running chronicle on life and death.