40 something – post COVID death

He was a neighbour
Whom I don’t remember so well
I walked, ran on the same road
Yet I don’t remember him

His dead body lay frozen on the road
On which he took his regular long walks
He was ambitious
He wanted to grow further

I wrote my notes for a better job
He wrote his for a better job too
As I walked by his dead body
He lay frozen on the concrete floor

Death is a conscious connection here
While he was alive we were strangers
This is how people connect with Palestine
Death awakens us about the other

A strange feeling took over
A thin borderline between him and me
I am here, while he is on the realm unknown
Nothing made me feel so real before

His heart had stopped they said
Is this an age to die? Forty something!
I placed my palms together
And prayed “May his soul rest in peace”

(Written in memory of people who are dying of cardiac arrest since the pandemic)