The Surgeon Who Lost His Knife

The columnists are thrilled,

A commotion in the hospital field.

Two empty jars of sulfuric and nitric acids

Lying near the surgical ward exits;

Signs of a disastrous vitriolage

On a surgeon of precious expertise.

The late-night on-call duty

Of a faithful government servant

Ends on a fateful note

With no one to save his crucial vision.

Those intelligent eyes,

Throughout hundreds of nights,

Have witnessed the success

Of many a hard-laboured surgeries.

Somewhere lost in the kingdom of amplified heart beats,

And lights and masks

And blood and flesh

And sterile instruments

And urgency and search,

Was a determined little blade

That wanted to take advantage of the expert's slip

And hide itself in the dark chamber of the abdomen.

The fingers that had performed for years

The magic of healing with a knife,

And the legs with varicose veins

That had suffered hours of diligent duty,

Now burn with the fumes of the acids.

Someone recovering on the post-care beds

Had been lamenting of severe abdominal pain

Right from the moment

The anaesthetic drama had faded away.

The x-ray had clarified the doubts

And the second opening of the abdomen was fixed,

While this intelligent mind

And the caring heart of this surgeon Struggled with guilt.

Within this space of surgical rectifying,

The winds of anger

And the storms of rage grew

Within the human mind of the affected

That felt cheated.

The patient's expression of pain,

With shouts and cries throughout the night,

Encouraged her furious husband

To purchase those jars of acids

And to splash those harmful liquids

On this faithful surgeon

On that fateful morning.