From those years came 2
tattoos, yours black, mine green.
I was a shell of a girl, wore floral
skirts pulled from overhead,
took    comfort in arranging things in rows
or in circles, like the one you thought
should go above my left ankle,
that delicate bird-bone, that perfect
hairless wasteland. And since I was
   no stranger to impermanence
I let you convince me to draw it
to match yours, the one you
would etch onto your shoulder,
   that would look, years later,
above your wedding dress, like a
dead insect, so that after you had two
fourths of your children
you covered it with a daisy,
for your Grandmother Daisy,
which I never had one of.
So I had 12 treatments, 8 weeks apart,
the hairless plastic surgeon pip, pip,
pipping it into a cherry-round crown that
took weeks to heal, so painful I considered
amputation, though I would always return
to his office, where he would smile at me
   as if he saw something nearly beautiful, where
   he offered me a botox discount, since
now I am 40, which is 20 years removed
   from falling in love with you in ways
   that are still seared into my body