The Carter:

 

Who is this man? Pulls the wagon

wooden wheels, the cart chocked

with femurs and skulls, the remains

removed from the clogged cemeteries

to a new place of rest; even the dead crowd

their silence louder than car horns,

strident as voices can only desire to be.

 

Who is this man? Dressed in white

so that he glows in the subterranean city

working through the days beneath the workers

working through their days; he has no sun

until he returns upstairs to sleep,

instead the gentle hum of carbide, the sound

of wooden wheels across limestone.

 

Who is this man? Leads the cart of the dead

deeper into the labyrinth as if carrying

the rejected who had no coins for Kharon

and must travel by road instead; he wears a hat

and white smock as if an artist, searches

for the site of his next great masterpiece

the ink the years, the bristles the finality of death.