Tattoo

a vast middle-aged human universe eco poem

Love without limits, wear it like a dress 
wear it like gold, wear it like vibram soles 
perfectly attuned to your feet. 
Mass produce it, sell it off cheap, 
scar yourself with it. 

Is a carving of the self into skin
an inhabiting? Where panic just can’t settle
I ink it into derma 
feel it flutter there, fuse ready
a bruise-bomb. 

There is surrender in visibility.
Icarus yourself to the sun, each morning
full of singed feathers, a fall to concrete
to rooftop, to lake, to self. 

I was born to breathe fire 
burn away layer after layer of streets walked, 
time taken, busses, trains, planes - inbetweens. 
I'm here! this is my outer Hebrides, 
where mountain peaks press into my skin like thorns. 
The sea is my sass, my sass
somedays millpond, 
others rising 50ft high and counting. 

I am a carcass rotting, ribs praying. 
I am fly-glitter-jewel-body buzz-
buzzing until I can’t think. 
I am sunk in earth with my mother, 
suffering skyward with my father. 

This is where I hold hands hard. 

I am via Ferrata, vines between trees 
in a weeping/burning rainforest. 
I am on my crippled knees 
dreaming of the next ten thousand steps. 

I am chrysalis, I am egg, I am spawn 
I am birthing, a heart cracked open 
breaking, blossoming. 
Rainbow dust and ash.

Pigment.
I can take it! Needle fresh, 
looking out over water, 
my lap an open book,
tattooing light inside
quasar guts, my lantern.

we are mycelium you and I 
we are cumulo-nimbus
we are extra-terrestrial, multi-limbed, cosmic web.
My hands your hands,
my love, your love.
my pain, your pain.

watering orchids beneath the moon
we are 8 billion and counting.
streetlight orange sky
particulates, flim-flam.

(a picture of my youngest when she was little and discovered the thrill of painting herself)

I wanted to give you something fresh, I found it in my notes and finished it on here so it may yet receive edits! I discovered so many forgotten notes in doing this I may well have my next collection ready before this one has even been published!

As always my dear space travellers, my dear friends on this crazy trip if you enjoy my work make it possible for me to carry on giving these snippets from my brain to yours, these delicious downloads we share by buying me a coffee, sharing or recommending me! Thank you for being so utterly perfect and utterly, deliciously, magical.