Mr. and Mrs. Tattoo

 

We each got a tattoo

to prove that we love each other.

Soon, we each got a second tattoo

to prove that we really wanted the first.

The third tattoo commemorated

something too painful to talk about.

People would constantly ask

about the third tattoo

so we covered it

with the fourth tattoo.

The fifth tattoo just appeared

as if inked by elves in the night.

Each tattoo had a special meaning

except the sixth tattoo.

The seventh tattoo continued a story

about a mermaid and a sailor

and an endlessly indifferent shoulder blade.

The eighth tattoo

was carefully planned

but secretly, a disappointment.

There were so many more.

Some of them tried to connect

back to that first tattoo.

They wanted to be part of a single covering,

to always answer the question

“how many?”

with “one.”

Others wanted their place on our bodies

to be theirs and theirs alone.

They resented any repetition

of colour or line.

We became a sort of buzz around town,

a sighting in the supermarket

or furniture store.

Children were told not to stare

and told if they didn’t forget the glimpse

they got of us that the impulse

to cover their flesh in pictures

would just erupt someday.

They would have to get jobs in circuses

or doing data entry from home.

We learned to smile and nod at our curious

but sometimes frightened neighbours.

And thus we grew old

sipping Earl Grey tea on the back porch

of our farm house, increasingly

confused about what to do

with our hands, our eyelids,

our genitals.

It is sometimes hard to see

any natural conclusion

or to remember that this business

with all its twists and turns

started as an act of love.