Tag: Tattoo

Waiting Room, Clarity Piercing, Durham NC by Alison Seevak

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Waiting Room, Clarity Piercing, Durham NC

There are no mothers here
but when your daughter
invites you, you go and sit
on the wooden bench, grateful
to be there, after months
of silence. You sit next to the girl
holding the ring that fell
from her septum the night before
while your daughter’s in back,
getting the stud in the cartilage
of her left ear replaced
with a thin gold hoop.
It’s a rook, she’d explained
before the dark eyed piercer
with the sleeve of tattoos
called her name.
She’d traced the map
on the wall, showed you
the geography of all the ways
an ear can be pierced.
Conch, orbital, daith, helix.
Snakebites,
the name for the silver
studs dotting each side
of her lower lip. The post jutting
through her left eyebrow
looks like it hurts,
but it doesn’t, she said
and you remember
other waiting rooms,
pediatrician, orthodontist,
math tutor, ice rink,
the ER when she was five,
fell out of bed, and broke
her collar bone. The nurse
pulled you into the long corridor
so they could talk to her alone,
so they could make sure
it was not you
who had done the damage.

*

Alison Seevak’s writing has appeared in journals and anthologies including The Sun, Literary Mama and Atlanta Review. She lives in Northern California.

Navigating by Lisa Romano Licht

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Navigating

You only show me your tattoos when they’re a done deal. Peel back your shirt, laugh nervously for the reveal. Know my surprise and disappointment will burst like a match-tossed flame. “Mom, are you mad?” you mouth. I shake my head no. A strange emotion rises in me for you, barely in your 20s, and it, so permanent. Potential future of hovering regrets. This one fills your upper arm. I cringe at its geometric spread, wonder how easily it can be hidden. You explain its design, tracing your birth constellation, Libra. Each of its five points bloom with the birth flowers of our family: us, your father, older sister and childhood dog. Morning Glory. Two Marigolds. Poppy. Lily of the Valley. Days later, the flame flickers, smolders. My mind flashes back to years ago when you, a sad girl, no ink, briefly drew hurting marks on that same skin. Pain we shared. Now I see you grown strong-muscled, clear-eyed, choosing a canvas that charts your universe of love instead. Stars fixed and aligned; blossoms awake in perpetuity. Show me your arm again.

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Lisa Romano Licht’s poetry and other work has appeared in The Westchester Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, San Pedro River Review, Blue Heron Review, Steam Ticket, Mom Egg Review, Ovanque Siamo and elsewhere, and was selected for The Year’s Best Dog Stories and Nothing Divine Dies, both anthologies. She holds a Masters in Writing from Manhattanville College and lives in Rockland County, NY. Find her on X:@LRLwrites

Tattoo by Robin Wright

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Tattoo

My grandson asks which tattoo
tempts me to the point
of letting a needle pierce my skin.

He wants a tiger, a fierce,
strong symbol to snarl
from his shoulder or stomach
to reinvent him or remind him
of who he is, who he can be.

I favor an elephant,
big
gray
saggy
full of life
sixty years has bestowed.

*

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Bombfire, Sledgehammer, Young Ravens Literary Review, Sanctuary, Ariel Chart, Spank the Carp, Panoply zine, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.