Tag: tattoos

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.

*

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

Three Poems by Anne Babson

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POST-FACTUAL-MODERNISM

So much depends
Upon
A red hat about
America
Stitched in China
For Russia
Beside the white
Chickens

*

MADISON AVENUE HAIKU

The Shinto soundbyte
Smacked between bubblegum lips
Is irreligious.

Five beats, seven beats,
Five beats — and why should we think
This is not an ad?

Japanese culture
Owns the rights to bonsai verse.
Coke is it for us.

*

WHERE LOUIS, LESTAT AND I BAR-CRAWL BOURBON STREET

Whatever words say, bodies govern us,
Trapped by flesh, no matter which pretty speech.
But on Bourbon, bouncers don’t card this
Child corpse. They assume I’m auditioning.
I watch women spin on poles, cellulite
Jiggling while they twerk, fat nipples bouncing.
Louis and Lestat slip into the lounge,
But I am not hungry for the buffet.
I stole a wallet off my midnight snack
On Conti. I slip bills in g-strings, not
To satisfy appetites but to watch
Women’s thighs show me stretch marks and track marks
Through bronze spray tan, tattoos, and glitter sweat.

This book freezes me in glitter amber.
My child vampire body will never grow.
That’s not vampire blood. That’s vampire novel.
I ask Britni, the one I panty-stuffed
With twenty singles, to answer questions.
What’s her favorite book? She doesn’t read.
Not reading books traps, too, I see. Britni
Won’t reach fifti, my night vision tells me.
But what is your favorite book? Yes, you there!
And to what has it taught you to submit?

*

Anne Babson is the author of three full-length collections of poetry — The White Trash Pantheon, Polite Occasions, and Messiah. Her fourth collection, The Bunker Book, will be published in 2021 by Unsolicited Press. Her poems have appeared in literary journals on five continents. She lives and writes in New Orleans.