It wasn’t the needles, or punctured skin,
(rat-a-tat-tat, and repeat) that surprised me—
she’d had years of infusions.
It wasn’t the ink
like an ant trail of dark blood—
nothing, we hadn’t both seen
in the vials siphoned monthly
like crude oil from shale,
that often sputtered or refused to flow.
It was the location she chose—
familiar bench of her left, inner arm
exposed and soft as morning haze
where once tubes were tied
above her bulbous vein.
And the image, in Roman numerals,
their heft like those carved on a tombstone,
engraved on a sundial or gold coin—
a code one must decipher,
something a future lover will rub his finger over
or kiss.
The tattoo inscribed today marks
an expiration to the platoons of bottles, pills
lined up dutiful as soldiers;
marks four years since the gnat-swarm
of her rash and weakness finally lay dormant
like larvae in winter.
And I no longer know the name
of the pharmacist by heart.
–
Suzanne Edison’s recent chapbook, The Body Lives Its Undoing, was published in 2018. Her poetry can be found in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Naugatuck River Review, Scoundrel Time, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, JAMA, SWWIM, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 Hedgebrook alum and teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle.