tattoo

the red brown ink
suggests henna
but i’ve got this—

and you—

under my skin.

i quiet as i age.
the veil over my
skin darkens.

what’s a little more
brown, a little more
red, in a body?

we are marked men,
marked women.
i’ve got this.

mark me. none of us
remains unblemished,
intact, unwritten.

earth, blood,
ink, wood.

i settle like an old house
into its good bones.
i settle now without
settling.

from 2500 miles
away you can hear me
creaking, shifting upon
the foundation of
this smile.

i smile when they
ask, when they
know better.

let them know better.
i have known worse.

i have been asked
many times

what if it doesn’t mean
what you think it means?

how can you be sure?

i cannot.

i can only be as sure
as the straight-edge of
blacktop at the end of
the last marked road.

like you,
i remember
that “X” marks the spot.
that map is long gone.
i refuse to stay in the car.

i must pick my
path through the new
shoots, the new thorns.
i expect to bleed, to
be bitten, as do you.

we offer our warm skin
to each other. come on.
mark me, then.

we dare, then
we grin. scarred
is not scared.
i am my father’s dottir.
i know the difference.

this may hurt a bit.
this may heal a bit.

how we humans love
our urban legends: the
man with the Chinese
tattoo that was a lie,

the tattoo that really
means I like to be
on the bottom

but you were with me
when a strawberry balloon
set us down beside the wild
blonde dottir of a mild
mannered Viking.

while she flirted with
the waiter and her friend,
you paid for us all and

my cups of wine and
water and you
ranneth over and over.

the dottir’s pink
phone to my ear,
i marveled at the lilt of
her father’s voice,
his willingness to
discuss the linguistics
of a stranger’s future
tattoo.

i asked him for a bite
of his unwieldy native
tongue, soon to be
deposited,
then sealed,
beneath skin.

áfram, yes,
he said.

forward.
come on.
ahead.

exultation,
exhortation.
go, team.

sometimes, if
temperament suits,
a good name
for an eager pony.
áfram.

steady, girl. steady.
whoa.

i am neither above
nor below this ink.
i wake up to it and
mark it all day and
night. forward.

like you,
icelandia
will have me and i
will have it.

i trust in its people,
in its sky.
i trust in its pockmarked
soil: volcanic craters,
graves of fermented shark
waiting to be exhumed
for a feast here, a
feast there.

you cannot see yours.
you: unlikely warrior, all
broken skin and bones,
hunched in a folding
chair. i watched as he
gave you what was
already yours
to begin with.
fast water.

i take what is mine enough.
you take what is yours enough.

this is all we can do, over and over.
there is no rising above, no waiting for
the perfect word to come, no choosing
the singular scar that deserves the right
to our haughty skin.

i would tell them:
the right word is the one
that is right enough.

i would tell them:
the right one is the one
who is right enough.

if that changes, so be it.
let them ink over me with
roses balloons moons comets
my children’s initials my mother’s
name my first dog’s face your
fast sure plentiful water.

we are only
skin and bones, skin
and water, after all.

let them laugh. i am above
nothing, anymore. i have gone
underground only to pop into
the desert light and heat,
a soft, fragile head
that finally knows its place.

i’ve got this.

i offer my arm.
mark me.
offer yours, and
i will mark you.
i wait to feel the burn.
this time,
i choose to call it sun.

—for ebg, for the fourth, for the dare