“imagination”: creating another skin for oneself with the mind.
—Edoardo Fazzioli, Chinese Calligraphy (trans. Geoffrey Culverwell)

You shed your three-day-old pajamas
before the mirror. The body, while still in use,
has shriveled. A dead ant sucks
at one nipple. Toxic fruit. 
You have, at one time, worn 
the sea breeze, the rain, the odor of horses,
the face of someone familiar.
Nothing survives you now.
You’re out of skin. 
And morphine. 
Wild dogs run unleashed in your veins, 
hollowing out 
one organ after another 
in search of your buried bones.
Every bark feels out
your flesh, the internal wounds. 
They may not remember 
where they hid you,
but they are coming.

Bio: Arlene Ang