The Unclaimed Body

By Lynn Ockersz

Unlamented and unknown she joins the queue,

Of scores of others in unclaimed coffins,

Waiting to be stacked on a cold crematorium floor,

And forgotten maybe for days on end,

And the wise would be right when they say,

“Such treatment of the dead is no surprise,

In a republic that’s preferred to be in chains,

Whose disappearances have hit a historic high,

And where the Right to Life is not a subject of debate”;

Yet, an unclaimed body is a matter for intense shame,

And we have the evidence of our eyes here,

That in a land where religiosity pompously parades,

A human could go from cradle to grave,

Unclaimed, uncared for and perhaps unnamed.