Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Watercolor Tattoo

My skin, being porous, takes in the ink
Of all these drawn-on hearts
Distorts them, warps them,
Cloudy like a cup of milk
Poured into a glass of water.

The shape of your heart
Bent and blurred on my skin
A new thing in my hands or on them
Its shape now approximated
Its contours, now, as much yours as mine.

Such are stories, and such are songs
Even names can be refashioned
The new lines of our secret alphabet
Spelling out the language of our future.
Like smiths we bend the raw ore of old ink
Into the keys and locks of what we've found.