The stranger bneath the cloth

I opened the door of my home.
Darkness clung to every room.
The corridors were echoing with silence.
People stood still, their eyes closed.
In the middle lay a body, covered in white cloth.

I moved forward. The situation felt unreal.
I searched the shadows for my parents.
My father knelt beside my mother, 
arms around her grief.
I felt relieved �" but wait... who is lying beside her?

I walked towards the corpse to have a look.
Slowly, I lifted the cloth. The face beneath gave me a shock.
I can't breathe, but I couldn't look away.
It was a familiar person, but it wasn’t me.
His face looked the same, but whiter than mine.
He looked so calm and peaceful,
Lying in the lap of death �" lifeless and beautiful.

Author's Note

Please enjoy it and point out the area of improvement so i can improve

Reviews

[JayG]

You've written a chronicle of events, of the form, "This happened...then that happened...and after that..."

Breaking it into short lines doesn't magically change it to a poem.

I certainly support your desire to write poetry. But people have been finding ways to make it interesting and enjoyable for centuries. And universities offer poetry related degrees. No way are you going to sit at the keyboard and not make all the usual beginner's mistakes, unless...you dig into those skills.

Do that and you avoid the traps and stand on the shoulders of giants. Skip that and you'll rediscover all the traps and gotchas...never knowing it's happening.

So...grab a copy of Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook and dig in. It's filled with little surprises and lots of insight.

https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

And for an upgrade on your understanding of the flow of words in poetry, in general, and in making metrical poetry work, read the excerpt, on Amazon, of Stephen Fry's, The Ode Less Traveled.

Not great news, I know. But since the problems are invisible till pointed out, I thought you might want to know.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow