Skin

We come gift-wrapped in it,

the body’s largest organ, 

swaddling the I of We.

Silken, flaky, flabby, firm, tattooed,

goose bumped, stretchy stretchy.

Pliable, porous, prickly too.

Peculiar familiar flaws.

We sink into the shape of it.

Scrub and shed it. Moisturize.

Ticklish membrane. Crinkly lines.

Pimpled dimples, hairy hide.

Touchable. Woundable. Healable, yes.

Bears us flinching through these times.

A map of scars. Silent, true.

Quiet witness to the bruise.

Repairs, reveals, sometimes weeps.

Swoons sunward to heaven’s heat.

However humble, a holy home.

Holds lifetimes tender to the bone.

(c) Deborah Jang. All rights reserved.

2017, Dash Literary Journal