Mummies
I saw a mummy lying with the cryptic dead; I saw a mummy — but its life had fled; I saw a mummy — walking on the street; I saw a mummy — dead, yet on its feet.
Anna M. Johnson
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
I saw a mummy lying with the cryptic dead; I saw a mummy — but its life had fled; I saw a mummy — walking on the street; I saw a mummy — dead, yet on its feet.
The speaker describes seeing a mummy four times, and the repetition makes the poem feel like a chant. In the first two lines, the mummy is exactly what you'd expect: a preserved body lying among the dead in a tomb, its life long gone. Then the poem turns. In the third line the mummy is walking down a street, and the fourth line spells out the twist: it is "dead, yet on its feet."
The idea seems to be that some people are mummies without ever being entombed. They move through ordinary streets and ordinary days, but something essential has drained out of them. The poem never says exactly what, which leaves the reader to fill in the gap: boredom, routine, numbness, giving up.
The speaker's tone is flat and observant rather than angry or sad, and that calm is what makes the poem unsettling. Four short lines are enough to make a crowded street feel like a quiet tomb.