There is one thing we dare not contemplate quite honestly;
Inside coffin lids, how many scratches would we see?
Or in the case of those who never slept upon their backs,
Would we find them upon their sides, the way they could relax?
One duly cautionary note; we ask you not to laugh.
For in the not so distant past, our knowledge was but half.
And that was long before autopsies, and specimen jars and such.
So we can say we have improved—call it The Modern Touch!
But those in coffins tell us this—that we know who they were.
The people then thought it important remembering him or her.
Our planet, though, is small…seven billion people strong.
Already we have questions as to where the dead belong.
Three thousand years ago, we took up but a little space.
Three thousand years from now, would we be able then to trace?
Predictably, by then, we’ll make our own explicit rules;
For then each death will just be zapped, becoming molecules!
© Richard Williams