The first day on the job The cards tell me To finish a dying man Crying on his knees I find his exact location And arrive to see family Gathered around his body Everybody cries profusely I scan the body lying there My sources come to report A father of two, dying of cancer No mother was present to support My heart cries a little As I hold my scythe Over the man’s limp body I check my list of tasks to do And read all of the names Of people of ages old and young Who would breathe their last breath today A girl has leukaemia A mother lost her child A father with cancer And a boy who wants to die I can’t be the one to end these lives That haven’t even been lived out fully The boy, the mother, the father and the girl Will all live long, blissfully As for my job, I’ve now lost After making the right decision We must all die someday, somehow But sometimes we’ve just got to keep living