A new tattoo

It's one thing to talk about the new tattoo and another to look at it.

It's too big, takes too much body space, engulfs the left shoulder.

He'll have to grow into it, but since he's 63 years old there's not that much time.

When he sent me the picture of the tattoo--a compass rose in red, green, blue and black--I said people get tattooed so that they remain interesting to themselves.

I think he laughed, though it was hard to tell.

Then he lowered his voice and said, "you should get one."

That much I remember.

He said it again, that I should get a tattoo.

I said that I would if I could ever figure out what it should say, and that it would have to mean something.

Finally, it was evening. I sat in the white chair in the living room after hanging up the phone.

All I could think of was my friend's brand new tattoo. I felt obsessed.

I know there's a way to see everything in matter as a form of light, or at least as a form of energy which creates light.

So I looked at his new tattoo as light.

It grew and grew in my mind until it was past midnight and time to walk upstairs to bed.