Floating Face Down in the Water
Arlene Ang
Like a paper doll.
Her hair clouds the lake.
A string of beads around her neck
swings between the breastbone
and her lips—
a kiss as impersonal
and wanting as a child
bent on finding
happiness in ice cream.
Her mouth is half-open—
a receptacle where organs
of the dead are kept. She is
an example of cigarette burns.
From her torso, a rib
juts out like a fishhook.
Where the skin is broken in places,
there’s the capacity to attract
the hunger of others.
Bone is hardly edible, a kind
of vacation—like driving up north
to see a friend and wearing
a hat, Chanel No. 19,
a wristwatch, no underwear.
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