Stephen Wilson
From the Anatomy Room
Riding the Circle line in rush-hour
I was the body under suspicion,
the one that wasn’t using Amplex
didn’t wash with Lifebuoy.
Odd the way those seats beside me
stayed unfilled till Baker Street.
Straps hung like unpicked fruit,
commuters turned their backs -
they say a fox can’t smell its lair,
but this was different; a foetid blend
of antiseptic sickly-sweet,
a lab-coat you couldn’t take off,
a stigma reeking from the skin.
Where I’d been the shelves were stacked
with specimens in jars of formalin,
a devil’s pantry on display. The place
was polished like a well-kept ward
with patients down each side
in tidy rows - they never called
a nurse, or moved their toes.
Page(s) 66
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