When someone has died
in the hospital,
the rucksack sits at home,
refusing to take in the facts
expecting soon to be picked up
in passing
en route out to the bike
like every work day

For a time,
inside the locked apartment,
the deceased stays alive in all things
still owning their purposes,
their household commissions;
the bed expecting
to have its pillows arranged,
the alarm clock eagerly waiting to be turned off,
the lamp, according to time of day,
expecting to be either turned on or off

It is painful
to enter and interrupt all objects
in their preparedness;
to belittle them,
take them off duty
and see them transform into property left,
but only then is the deceased properly dead,
himself become a thing amongst things,
an object
for ceremonial sorrow
and pain

- but for as long as no one sticks the key
into the front door
and enters the kingdom of things,
that up to that moment revels in its naturalness
around a living person,
everything is as it should
among kettles, coffee cups, boiler,
humming fridge and freezer,
the pantry's richness of cereals and grains,
wardrobes stuffed with clothes
and the living room's CD-player
and the TV on standby

...until the door opens...