---

Supine in dormant likeness waiting

A husk of unaware of the havoc within

Cells are bursting in a chain reaction

decay is their only finite function


Flesh to liquid than rarified to vapors

Emanations of rot vitriolic to the senses

Finding escape routes through cavities

witness the final dread of a narcissist


Lucidly shown by the gray cold light 

That same rage nagging intermittend flicker

Conferring death its own dismal luster

With its subtle metamorphic changes


While a moth flaps its powdery wings

Dropping its chalklike residue onto

Dry spent eyes evoking their void hopes

Faintly glistening in the cold brightness


Years of self-centered consciousness

In the end also lead their way to this

Delusions of grandeur extinguished

Upon the dreaded dissecting table


Supine onto it welcoming surface

The smooth frigid feel of polished steel

Draining the last slivers of bodily heat

Nestled within tissues in decomposition


so torrid to the touch so cold as cold can be 

The once delicate curves and features

Look so disjointed and angular as of now

Lifeless husk slowly torn apart by gravity


Lifting the limp head and pushing a trocar

Below the union of daphragm and sternum

Steel scraping the abdomen's architecture

Bleeding dry the torso's lower cavities


Of its purulent sludge-foaming abcesses

The embalming art meticulous in process

Not to restore the husk's former semblance

Merely to the defy nature's grip just enough


As to prevent further decay prior to entombment 

Such a practice heralds a constant remainder

Of flesh's mortality as positively expendable

and utterly disposable unlike the inner fire


Lifting the limp head and pushing a trocar

Below the union of diaphragm and sternum 

steel scraping the abdomen's architecture

Bleeding dry the torso's lower cavities.