Tattoo
You do know, right,
that between the no-
longer & the still-
to-come
you are being continually
tattooed, inked
with the skulls of
everyone
you’ve ever loved—the you
& the you
& the you & the you—you don’t
sit in a chair, thumb
through a binder, pick a
design, it simply
happens each time you
bring your fingers to your face
to inhale him back into you . . .
tiny skulls, some of us are
covered. You, love, could
simply tattoo an open
door, light
pouring in from somewhere
outside, you
could make your body a door
so it appears you
(let her fill you) are made
of light.
Copyright © 2016 by Nick Flynn. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 15, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
“A parenthetical appears in the last couplet of this poem, an aside I have no
memory writing ‘(let her fill you),’ interrupting the hermetic seal of the poem, a
wind blowing through an open door, just before we leave.”
—Nick Flynn
Nick Flynn
Born in 1960, Nick Flynn is the author of the poetry collections My Feelings (Graywolf Press, 2015), The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands (Graywolf Press, 2011), Blind Huber (Graywolf Press, 2002), and Some Ether (Graywolf Press, 2000), which was the recipient of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award.