SALVATORE DIFALCO

Tatuatore

Judging from your track record,
I would be loath to paint flowers
on your face let alone tattoo them on.
We live to regret what in the moment fires
our imaginations. I live for the moment,
agreed, but all I have to my name is my ink
and my rhetoric; the liar in my heart
thinks he can remember every deviation
from the truth, every stop and start,
every weighty pause or silence.

And if you thought you’d get to see
a flower bloom across your forehead
or your cheeks, or sprouting from your chin
or petaling your nose, perhaps we must agree
on a limited arrangement to protect me
from possible repercussions—your remorse,
your shame, your need to wear a mask.
A face begins and ends when it does
and flowers only draw to it the horses
with the biggest teeth and least to lose.