RogueAgent

I covet blue ink rather than
all these memories spilled on my skin.
I want mermaid hair to
cascade over forehead and nape
where a fist splashed fear over
my entire future;  a water
ribbon to snake the geography of
my earthly survival; rapids
to churn over a muscle
the size of my fist, pump
life through the middle of me.
What would they charge me?
to stream a trickle of ink over
shoulder blades, down my spine,
turquoise circling the hip with a full 
labral tear that hurts hot as sand.
A blue filament of truth on
my sleeve might slip down a wrist,
ring round a finger, disappear
under a nail I’d once bitten through
from the wrong end.  The quick grew back
when I got free. A waterfall
splits at my core, tumbles down
thighs, jumps knees and puddles
over scalded skin scarred by tea
above the arch of my left foot;
water pools in my shoes, the
wet slog of witness: this granite-
grandeur-spliced river of life.

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