This poem is about an is an asylum where severe mentally ill patients were kept sedated 24/7 in white rooms with padded walls and no windows . They were kept that way 20 , 30 , 40 , years or more until they died . Their bodies often went unclaimed by family and their bodies were buried on the grounds cemetery . Only a ten inch iron cross with a number on it to mark their grave . Often I wondered about the souls of these mentally deserted people and where would they go after the deserted cemeteries of the heart .