A rainy Sunday at the hospital morgue
Is the reason for dark humour to exist

I wasn’t required to stay the whole morning and afternoon here
It was only a question of maintaining a presence for any visiting mourner,
Except no one came.
There was supposed to be a bunch of people showing at 4pm,
But they neved did
And the morgue would close at 5.00 anyway.

No coffees and cakes in here.
It felt more like an east-german recruiting office,
Where the applicants are the grieving families
And I sat in the waiting room for too long over my cell phone,
Dealing with the announcement of your death,
Anticipating the following procedures
And having only slept four hours in three days,
While you gently rested in your death chamber…

We had to take a little break from each other, I’d say
I was your first visitor anyway after they moved you here
And you didn’t seem to have more conversation today,
So I left when I realized I’d spent almost an hour
In such a cold and grim space,
_ Looking more like an autopsy room,
And I was gonna start making calls in a funeral home…

Forgive the humour too.
Seemed like the only available drug in a morgue
I asked the intern at the reception
If there was any place to eat over the whole site.
Not on Sundays alas,
And even for the morgue’s medical staff,
Direction told’em :
« The dead don’t eat,
Why should we deliver food ? »

Forgive my hunger as well. Privilege of the living.
By the way, and for what it’s worth,
You look alright as a dead man, really.
A little stern maybe,
But surely not scary or like you suffered a lot

That being specified,
I’m gonna go home now. I’m so exhausted.
I just wanted to see you for five minutes more.
But this is not farewell
Two group visits confirmed this monday,
We’ll have to talk funerals and other post-mortem issues
Of course you never took a moment
To properly write your will down.
If only you hadn’t been so quick to let yourself go…
But that suits you perfectly well, I guess
To make a last mess of your death

Excuse me again for not crying
Maybe later… Maybe never.
Doesn’t mean I love you any less

You were not much of a weeper yourself,
So I presume you understand

Take care of your soul now.
And we’ll take care of the rest