In the Cadaver Room, a Young Doctor Is Morphed Into a Heart of Stone

At first,
a boy is a stranger to death.
he walks into the room of cadavers
& a storm rises in the sea within his body.
He pukes out some water from the rising sea.
In the cadaver room, a young doctor is introduced to death.
He picks up his surgical knives with premonitions
Because the room feels sacred. A pile of bodies lay there. You can tell
Which body died a gruesome death. The young doctor draws a cross on his forehead,
Says the Lord’s prayer, then touches his living skin to the dead skin.
In the cadaver room is fellowship of the living and the dead.

Every week [or almost every week],
The young doctor walks into the room of death,
Draws the cross on his forehead with his index finger,
says his Lord’s prayer, fellowships with the dead & leaves.
Till one day, he is Lord in the room of death, needs no sign of the cross,
Needs no Lord’s prayer to touch the dead or slap the dead or cut
The heart of the dead out of his body. Till he laughs in the room of death,
Maybe takes a bottle of rum in the room of death, talks about Trump & Obama,
argues about Cristiano & Messi as he carves a still body open.

He is like a god now,
Not moved to fear for dead bodies,
In the Olympus of cadavers, he sits as Zeus
Dictating which body goes to knife or not.
From the young doctor I learn the way
To make my heart a stone that can’t be moved—
I keep on with it till nothing in the world can shake me.

Kolawole Samuel Adebayo is an old soul in a young Nigerian body whose poems seek to awaken the human consciousness. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming on Glass Poetry, Button Poetry, Burning House Press, Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine,Tuck Magazine, Black Pride Magazine, WRR, BPPC anthology, and elsewhere. He likes to connect with his friends via his Twitter handle, @samofthevoice.