The Tattooed Poets Project: Sara's Scorpio

Our next tattooed poet is Sara Tracey, who sent us this image of her ink:

Sara tells us the story of how she came by this work:

"Jimbo, my tattoo artist, had just gotten his license. He was a middle-aged biker who lived with his middle-aged, ex-stripper girlfriend, Peaches, in Akron, Ohio. Jimbo’s studio was set up in the corner of his basement; just a chair and a table, some ink and a gun. I hesitated for just a minute before I handed Jimbo my design (the result of a Google Image search—how terribly unique), thinking I’d surely been warned against basement tattoo parlors. But the room was clean and well lit, and everything on the table was wrapped in plastic. How bad could it be? Two hours and sixty dollars later, I had my scorpion (or is it a lobster?), bright red with a thick black outline, on my shoulder. I’d settled on the design after five years of indecision by thinking: I’ll always be a Scorpio. And ten years later, it’s true—I’m still a Scorpio."

Sara sent us this poem to accompany the post:

Cane and Murrine (or The Glass-Blower’s Daughter)

This is a place where bones settle

soft as fog against the earth.  Here,

touch is dull knives, broken tongue

of waxy flame.  Fissures                                                                                   

of morning sun cross this mattress

where you and I have met before,

pallet of want and whispered

blessing, your eyelash on my cheek.

Tomorrow, our children will melt

before we know they’re born,

the car will break down on a ramp

outside the city and we will walk

to the bar without calling for a tow.

On the juke box, a song

we’re too young to remember

but know anyhow, like we know

our mothers as children, or think

we do.  Mine liked maple candy

but not cream, yours tight-roped

the clothesline in red Mary Janes. 

We will ignore errands, money  

owed, as our blood thins over a pool

table with a slow left tilt.  I will

be drunk enough to win the first game

but not the second.  You will not gloat

when I scratch the eight-ball.  At shift-

change, there will be nine dollars

between us, enough for a cab home,

cold cereal before sleep.  Box fan

in the window.  Deadbolts snapped

into place, clothes like breadcrumbs

from kitchen to bed frame.  I will

chew ice cubes to stay cool, tiny

glass castles. Air heavy in the gulf

of our bodies, the steady pulse

of pressure rising; rain before morning,

before sleep. Your lips a spider, a penny.

I’ll want something to hold, sugar or sand,

a cigarette lit and passed between us.

We won’t speak but ask questions

with each exhale.  Who says our sweat 

on this sheet can’t become glass?

~ ~ ~

Sara Tracey is the author of Some Kind of Shelter (Misty Publications, 2013) and Flood Year (dancing girl press, 2009). Her work has recently appeared in Vinyl Poetry, The Collagist, Harpur Palate, Passages North, and elsewhere. Originally from Ohio, she has lived in Chicago since 2008. She blogs at saratracey.wordpress.com.

Thanks to Sara for her contribution to this year's Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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