Tattooed I took a bus to the Terminal Shops. The tattoo parlor, Indelible Ink, was next to Hansel~s Candy Store. The room was dark once the cowbell went quiet. Paneling covered with snakes, cracked hearts, a skull smiling before the ace of spades, butterflies with one silent wing. I picked two roses growing on a slender stem. Only in a sketch could it hold such blossoms. The artist had big teeth and gray hair, the pigment used in the red ink swells in the sun. Pay first if you want it anyway. She sat me in an old dentist~s chair; My skin was cleaned and shaved. A needle was dipped in red tincture and then my right arm. As it stuck the skin, the strained machine screamed like someone being stabbed in an alley. The deeper the needle, the higher the pitch. A rose buried in me, twists around my wrist so close to the veins. Its thorns draw black crescent marks ~ drops of blood shaped like tadpoles. Every spring the sun resurrects my mutated rose. Its blooms breed small, ashen shadows. copyright 1994 kathy jo kramer