The oldest person he’d ever tattooed, he said <br />Was a widowed old lady of eighty-six, no less, <br />Who ever since she was a girl had longed <br />To have her very own tattoo, but first <br />Her dad had put his foot down on the plan <br />And then it was her husband who’d said “no”, <br />So frustrated all her life, she’d had to wait <br />Until her husband had been laid to rest — <br />Now here she was! So taking a deep breath <br />Outside the tattoo parlour, and feeling rather <br />Nervous she stepped in. Among the punk- <br />haired girls with hollowed eyes and pierced tongues <br />And boys with metal belts and shaven heads <br />She felt a little out of place, but then <br />She saw the glittering samples on the wall — <br />A rainbow-coloured magic land of fantasy <br />With wizards, dragons, lightning, thundrerbolts, <br />Warriors with blazing guns — “Pow! ” and “Blatt! ” — <br />Wild horses and women with bayonets and blasters, <br />Leaping, screaming, long tresses streaming, <br />Bare-thighed, wild-eyed, untrammelled, free… <br />And in the quiet places on the wall <br />Red roses richly entangled in thickets of thorns, <br />Loving hearts and limbs entwined in blossomed arbours <br />Where swallows and lovebirds go swooping and looping in play. <br />When her turn came, she chose a purple dragon, <br />Fork-tailed and fiercely snarling, spitting flame. <br />She did not think her father or late husband <br />Would have approved its presence on her arm <br />But “tough! ” At least she knew it would surprise <br />The maiden lady who brought her ‘meals-on-wheels’ <br />And if it didn’t, she had been rather taken <br />By those slender silver rods for pierced tongues. <br /> <br /><br />Pete Crowther<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/her-first-tattoo/
