The closure of door 42

There’s graffiti scrawled on door 42,

In crayon, at knee-height, in brown and in blue

It’s scribbled in anything but orange and grey,

And nobody’s willing to wipe it away

There’s nobody living in room 42,

The bed is uncovered, steel lines in stark hues

The window is dusty and covered with a grid

A lid, a lid, a rusty old lid

A soft draught is blowing in room 42,

It carried the swallows through the deep blue

Of the deserts and oceans that kept me from you

Of the oceans and deserts that kept me from you

A sentence has ended in room 42,

A period, full stop; no, nothing new

Out in the exercise yard the flag blew

As they carried the coffin carrying you,

As they lifted the casket,

The child-sized casket,

And the preacher, he asked it:

What’s the meaning of life?

And I laughed.

42.