The Last Request
The knob turned
And opened the door
The door of the apartment
On the first floor
And the sudden gasp
Of air that the fireplace exhaled
Knocked an ember
To the floor
An ember that had been glowing
In the hearth
The room, a peaceful space
Warm but gloomy
As it slowly cooled down
The mercury downcast
And receding fast
“Close the door”! The inspector barked
Without looking ‘round
And with the click-thunk sound
His from followed the mercury
As it slowly pummelled
From his forehead
“Very curious”, said the man
In the coat
“Within a locked room,
This man may have been smote”
No open windows
No unlocked door
As the ember absently
Scorched the floor
Examining the body
The inspector soon found
A pocket of stones
And a pocket of ground
And as he thought
He absentmindedly made
A muttering sound
The rain pelted
The ground
Into submission
As rivulets of tears
Ran down panes
To coagulate into streams
To flow past
The old cemetery
At the end of Murray street
Where many a corpse
Wrapped in a sheet
Waited silently
For the trump
But there is more a decomposition
Than a composition around
It was there
Where
Those smooth stones
Were found
- The same place as the ground
The inspector knew
‘tis there that the man had gone
To a place of death
With which he was now one
To place of rest
Is it possible? Rest?
To where his love lay deep
Under the shadows of grazing sheep
To sleep, to sleep
But not a dream
His death was his last
Longing scream
The rocks and the ground
Was his last request
To lay with his love
To lay down and rest
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