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.
Ogunkoya Samuel is a Nigerian physiotherapist. His poems have been published in Kalahari Review, AfricanWriter and Best New African poets anthology 2017. He writes from Lagos. You can find him on twitter @SamuelOgunkoya.