Picture of Sumedha AryaSumedha Arya is a hematology fellow at the University of Toronto.


If the body is a vector for disease,

Then what am I?

Flesh on bone on flesh and bone,

Reduced to adulation.

 

I dream not of martyrdom,

But of shedding snakes,

Miles of insidious debris,

In the middle of the night.

 

Amongst serpents I complete

a pupal transformation.

Once clean will I finally

be able to fly.

 

Awake, I am filthy,

My skin heretical.

Wings are limbs,

Grungy and begrimed.

 

My carapace only offers

so much space to hide,

before the ants come crawling

to make their homes inside.

 

If the body is a vector for disease,

Then what am I?

Flesh on bone on flesh and bone,

Reduced to adulation.