..Don’t I already bear
The etched and flaring marks
Of an inky trade?
What once was skin
Has turned to something
Made; written and revised
Beneath these sleeves..
Isn’t there always
A little more room
On the skin? It’s too late
To be unwritten,
And I’m much too scrawled
To ever be erased.
Go ahead: prick and stipple
And ink me in:
I’ll never be naked again.
Excerpt from “My Tattoo” by the peerless Mark Doty
