Memento mori

A Poem by Maxwell Ryder

Time dulls all vanities,
Trolls eventuality;
Skin, once-stretched,
Is put to bed
Under wrinkled sheets;
Death fetches
The catafalque;
Satin-polished skulls,
Whose sinuses
Bubonic Plague culled,
Mice now call home.
Memento mori orders
Grotto and quarry below,
As dental caries
Stare back in
Jacobin horror,
Lost to kith and kin,
Where roaches scurry
Over sutures,
And bared teeth.
Grinning, the humerus
Of the wealthy,
Crosses tibia of poor;
Phalanx
After
Phalanx
Of sans culotte
Await
A fraternity
Of neighbors
To Robespierre’s
Egalitarian
Sword.