suddenly, beauty

“tattoos – a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling”

      Jimmy Buffett

I don’t care much for tattoos, some

sort of statement on skin to the world –

here I am they announce abruptly

like my neighbor who rarely speaks

to me except to point at my ragged lawn.

His forearm ripples, a mudged 

rendering of someone I don’t know, 

poor tribute on skin. But

on occasion they surprise me

like deer bounding out of a hedge

across the road of my car

stunned for a second by fleeting beauty

and the damage of movement – like 

the hospice nurse who leaned over

my dying mom, a small blue dove

dotting the soft nape of her neck,

all her actions sure and final 

and kind. The needle must have pricked

purple pain spreading ink on

waiting skin. Suddenly there’s beauty

my heart taken in the moment

moving stillness shows us briefly

life is here, imprinted on skin

indelible and, one would hope,

soaring, doves breaking to heaven

above the marred and temporal flesh.