Memento Mori

Cold Death is like the sea. He washes near,
surrounding lowlands. Waters held at bay,
the equilibrium is sustained by mere
pressure of blood. Biology, one day,

relents, the dyke relinquishes, then seeps
and yields. No vacuum is allowed.
Osmosis of mortality will keep
displacement’s laws. You see amid the crowd

those waterlogged and intimate with him,
whose logic – irremediable –will drown
them soon. Meanwhile, discreetly laps the rim
of life’s assertions and evades renown.

For doctors’ waiting rooms and football grounds,
shopping malls, buses, streets, are, secretly, where
he hides in plain sight. Colourless. No sounds
are made. The waters, though, are, secretly, there.