Tattoo

5 a.m. on a Sunday and I accidentally wake my husband.
“Poetry piled up overnight,” I explain. He murmurs,
“Death by poetry,” and rolls over.
But I am here thinking how Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, 
and great poets I don’t know enough about 
have carried me through the night—
this most recent night, one that runs off the edge
with too much always, too dark always,
inscribed by oligarchs who don’t care a whit
about poetry or the people who write it.
And suddenly, I am thirty again, 
wanting to pierce my eyebrow,
listen to music too loud for my age, 
roll up my sleeves and fight. 

I look for reminders of where I have been,
where it is I think I should be,
something to ground my crisis.
It’s on my right shoulder,
purple tattoo of a feather,
sharp point scripting critical words: 
Carpe Diem. 

Carpe Diem.

Reminding me one life 
is not enough, that I will never be 
Langston or Maya, 
but I can live in my own words, 
I can live my poetry,
write metaphors that make sense to me. 
Fingers to keyboard, penpoint to paper,
needle to the thin skin of nobody listening yet,
it’s all okay in this, the early morning.
Just me, the marks on my body, and poetry.
The quiet rebellion of indelible ink.

-Katherine Gotthardt