All over him like a mismatched garden.
A bluebird on his bicep with the Word of the Lord in its beak and
Below it, hunching over his funny bone, the Reaper.
One ass cheek, Mr. Magoo, the other, a rose with his first
Daughter's name in it.

Four Horsemen on his chest. Beneath the hair on his thighs,
Smokey the Bear & Dimebag, noodling on his last guitar.
A Big Rig colliding with a 'Cuda around his neck.
And all those tear drops inking the tough flesh above his mouth.

In prison, a sign you'd murdered, they told him, but hell,
He's human, isn't that killer enough.

Elegant as memory isn't.
The ink proportional, crisp in outline, shading accurate.
How they hug the path of her muscles, two on the calves.
One on each shoulder.
Albums she can't turn the page on.
Even covered they burn, this past on her skin that leads strangers
To confess their own losses.
Ahead of her, the car wiped off the highway.
With it, her whole family, she left to recall.
The delicate coronet of blood her teen sister wore, still in braces.
That face, perfect as memory isn't, set hard upon the mantel of her flesh.

Instead of rings (she knows this, has witnessed it)
That would be lost, crushed, pawned, why not ink
To commemorate their engagement, images
Inextricable from each other, not like
Lancelot & Guinevere, Laurel & Hardy, bread & butter,
But more cosmic.

He chose the sun, she the moon, as neither can illumine
Alone, and they set them on their chests, in a sky,
So, when they lay together, the powers would fuse,
When they turned, day exchanged for night, as if
Love could move all.

Now, years later, she has even lost sight
Of where he is, the split so final, their rift
Dividing the universe, her mind all dark,
His a relentless burning, and no more rise & fall.

Had them done back when it meant something.

Not just lost love, a dare, a trend
But where you belonged – certain types
For in or out of the joint, lots for the freakers
At Coney Island, tweeters, anchors and hearts
For the sailors, stevedores and roughnecks.

Signs of being in a club, even of outcasts.

Today, every Betty's got a few beneath her shirt
And getting inked is the rite of snot-nosed suburbans.

Mine used to mean something.
Now they're just a wash of what was, spilling
Out of their lines the way forgetting is,
My brain a blur of shades, vague as the past,
The symbols becoming one with scars, hair, skin.
Soon, the earth.