Peacefully, in hospital...

They dragged him up on his pillows,
propped his lolling head.
"He hasn't got long", said the charge nurse.

There was a gurgling
in the plastic tube that filled his nostril,
and each fresh retching groan surprised him.

His relatives
gathered behind the drawn curtains
and whispered to each other.

When he died
the widow fainted, and the rest
expressed concern before hurrying away

leaving the nurses to forcep faeces from the corpse.
I was reminded, as the porters wheeled him out,
of the father of a friend in Bradford,

pre-war, alone on duty at night, without a lift,
and an eighteen stone body to dispose of.
He said he rolled it down the stairs.