Like in a scene from a film,
where the camera pulls back,
we see a head resting in the mud,
glassy grey eyes stare out
as if searching beyond the trees.
Grey hair crusted with muck.
Soil specked lips, bluing and sluggish,
parted from the final inhale
exhale process which has
failed like a broken clock.
Stopped heart like a rock.
Skin, liver spotted and birth marked,
cold and graying like silver birch bark,
A brown overcoat covers arms
splayed like branches, caught
and underneath a vague sheet
of russet leaves which have
since fallen in the breeze.
Insects crawling from beneath them
climb to inspect the unfamiliar mound
still to be discovered by a passerby.

And in a house not far away a wife looks at her watch
And she sits in front of the television,
And aware that something isn’t quite right
her stomach clenches up like a fist.