At 17
I got tattooed.
Snake and a sword,
Mom went over board.
It's plain,
Navy on flesh.
With pens and markers,
colored,
More times
Then I could guess.
Butcher Joe
Did the ink.
He,
On smack,
Is what I did
Think.
He told me,
He'd go fishing
For carp and walleye.
Put them in a tank
And fish again
From his couch.
Bushy long red hair,
Bushy long red eyes.
I pulled muscles,
To watch him.
Deep silent sighs.
My arm
Looked like a newspaper joke.
Black and white,
And red all over.
Maybe because 'It'
Was my 'rite of passage',
But I loved the pain.
To me
It symbolized
Protecting Knowledge.
So I saw
No shame.
There's a mole
For the snakes nostril.
Like a snake has a nose.
But I hear
What it smells,
And thats simply
How it goes.
�2003 Daniel J Harris