Room number four

Room number four

In the room number four,
death was hidden under the white blanket on the first bed left by the door.
It stood and scared those who were having dinner.
Death was waiting to be taken away.
They came to pick it up with the same white bed.
They took it away with a ghostly screech of wheels.
That's how I saw death for the first time.
A hundred more times in the semi‐darkness of my hospital room,
I saw that white bed.
And I listened to that eerie screeching of the wheels.