TO HIS DEAD BODY BY SAMUEL OGUNKOYA

To his dead body

When I think of prayer,  I see bodies

Draped with sacred conversations in whispers

Bodies large, large and celestial,

(However, all that is large is not prayer)

I write this in a borrowed room,

On a floor glistening with my grief

And when I read to myself

“If only we could pinch the many

Moments of silence in a noise.”

What I actually mean is

“The only way to learn living

Is to be alive,  to live.”

You know it makes me shiver,

That lifetimes are fugitives. Doesn’t it

Make you livid that  the only prayer

I know is not your body, breaking from

The mouth of the ones you loved,

In whispers, large and asleep.