Everyone has a tattoo—
or two, or three,
skin and bank the limit.
And here I thought myself radical,
carving, first, a purple rose
where, now, my ankle swells,
tribal sun on the opposite calf,
yin and yang at the center,
looking like eyes, or octopus,
(which, supposedly, have proved
to be sentient). Then again,
there is the plume,
scripting itself on my shoulder,
lilac, Carpe Diem stretching
its way down to the elbow.
(I don’t know Latin.
I just like the phrase.)
When I had it touched up,
I asked to have birds added,
so now little Vs pop from
quill to bicep, or what remains
among snaps and crinkles of age.
I am starting to look like a feather,
bony at center, wispy-haired,
separated and oiled
whenever I run fingers through,
(I never can remember a hairbrush),
my tattoos no longer adequate:
Thoth on my forearm, wisdom
written beneath, reminding me
not to be stupid. Backstory memorialized
on limb and lip, artists
speaking in memoir: Two or three
say they’ve been criminals.
Four in and out of jail.
It’s the drugs, they admit,
from what they know of habit,
of self. Every day is struggle.
Two tell me they’ve cleaned up.
Another’s discovered God. One
proposed to a barely adult—
tripped when she’d said yes.
She’s the light in my life, he tells me,
filling the beak of the god of knowledge.
Of learning. I wonder what I know
now, having listened so closely,
witnessed histories drilled
through eyebrow and tongue,
paid for needles to splay open
my flesh—like truths we share
only with strangers.
Amazing how still we sit,
having bought the bloodletting.
Amazing how risky to live.
How fortunate to try.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright October 24, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Katherine's Coffeehouse
