Tonight's Poet Corner: Overly Inked

Overly Inked
by Belinda Roddie

I wrote a conspiracy theory on
your back, and you had it tattooed
in red and black by the man in the gray
skullcap at the parlor with white walls
splattered with the photographs of a single
moment over drinks long ago. He was so

careful with the needle, as it buried its nose
into your flesh, breathing in its curves and
edges, pulsing with nearly arousing euphoria
as it spelled out my commentary in calligraphy
and flowered misgivings. We took shots

of tequila at the bar next door and soaked
our lips in lime before we heard the jets flying
over our heads. I screamed, "Look at
the shadows on the walls!" We knew that
the Illuminati was watching us from
the cracks in the plaster, sipping cold tea
out of plastic mugs, musing over

the cryptic code painted across your
veins and threatening to leak into your
bloodstream, slowing your heart to a deep,
somber rhythm, like a drum rumbling beside
an acidifying ocean, all the crustaceans clumped

like silver on the sand. Carving out messages
of their own, prophecies, to be later scratched
into our skin and never fading until our bones
became more resilient than our bodies.