A steady-hand girl
who shares my zodiac
penetrates the freshly-shorn

thin brown skin of my upper arm
with an ebony ink dipped needle,
sharp as the arrow of Cupid.

She and I talk shop
over the low humming,
the tiny pricking and dragging

of her stylus fingertip
engraving me with the names
of three generations of women

who walked the long path
to get me here.
When her moving hand becomes uncomfortable,

I flex my toes to feel
the slapping of my sandal
against the sole of my right foot,

and lose myself in the funk
of the Ohio Players thumping
from the small gray speakers

that rest on a table
in the far corner
of the white room.

When she is done,
we admire the elegance
of my angry, scripted bicep

slick with Vaseline,
and step outside
for a smoke.