despite all attempts,
i have learned that the skin
will not become stone no matter
what you try to etch into it. 
on my right forearm i have
Vonnegut's mantra "everything
was beautiful and nothing hurt"
chiseled into tombstone. i wore
the rose print dress & the artist 
held my thin arm to keep me steady.
we stopped half-way through 
after i felt the room lurch, fainting
starts like blowing dust off
top the book shelf, taking the finger prints
with it. tear needle from plastic.
i don't want to be sterile.
the fury of spiders opening mouths to scream.
his skin was courser than mine.
i read that tattoos aren't just 
ink plunged deep into skin, 
they're actually fought like infections, 
cells coming to rescue the dermis 
from our images. the human is a body
of symbology-- the hawk, the tiger,
the dragon. a man whose name i do not know
presses into me, this time with the needle.
he says i should "lean into the pain"
& i laugh because i hate to writhe for anyone.
when he asks what the scars on my forearm
are from i tell him "poison oak,"
when they were really hot heads of matches.
i think of my skin sedimentary. the layers
of scar, the wounds beneath ink colors. 
my newest one is still healing. it scabs--
coming off in flecks of dried blood & tissue. 
alone i watch it, expecting to see the
cells in action, arriving at the surface
of my skin, like humpback whales, breaking
the ocean for a gulp of air.