Some coffins are heavier.
They carry name, fame and money,
and they become news.
Some are lighter.
They are common people,
they walk on foot,
they clean sewage,
they drown in manholes,
and never return.
They are voters, only voters,
they don’t have a name.
Some coffins are the lightest.
They are of nameless children,
they are killed at the borders
in Palestine or Syria,
or in Afghanistan or coal mines.
They are buried, or their bereaved parents
tuck them under boulders.
Some coffins don’t even exist.
They just vanish forever
in some forlorn hills or riverbeds.
Only the list gets longer,
the waiting of the half widows never ends.
Death is the capitalist monopoly,
it barks only when the riches fall.
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection The Musings of the Dark is available on Amazon.
Featured image: Payton Tuttle / Unsplash