As a child I was asked what I wanted to be, ‘A doctor,’ I said without thinking. I could not perceive the death beyond my childish horizon. Now a man, my limits are shrinking all around, as death closes in. Through my stethoscope I hear death's rattle my rubber hammer falls from my hands in battle; at each skirmish I lose death raises a cheer; though I cannot but leer at his magnificent finality. ‘You are a bad loser,’ he says, adding ‘Why take sides against dead certainty.’

Roy M. Salole was born in Aden, South Yemen. He studied medicine in London and practises psychiatry in Ottawa. This poem is from The Naked Physician: Poems about the Lives of Patients and Doctors, edited by Ron Charach (Quarry Press). Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

Chosen by Femi Oyebode.