When the Dead Speak by James Aitchison

Coffins, like secret chambers,
held fast their stories.
Stories of eager heirs,
stories of obliging doctors,
their deeds sealed in perpetuity —
until the old graveyard
yielded its dead for
a shopping mall.

See for yourself:
the dead have splinters
under their fingernails,
buried alive
by error or design.
How they must have
clawed and raged,
scraped and screamed,
until that airless blackness
was victorious.

 

James Aitchison is an Australian author and poet.