1396: Tattoo | Todd Davis
"Tattoo"
Todd Davis
Try telling the boy who’s just had his girlfriend’s name
cut into his arm that there’s slippage between the signifier
and the signified. Or better yet explain to the girl
who watched in the mirror as the tattoo artist stitched
the word for her father’s name (on earth as in heaven)
across her back that words aren’t made of flesh and blood,
that they don’t bite the skin. Language is the animal
we’ve trained to pick up the scent of meaning. It’s why
when the boy hears his father yelling at the door
he sends the dog that he’s kept hungry, that he’s kicked,
then loved, to attack the man, to show him that every word
has a consequence, that language, when used right, hurts.
On this day in...
2011: "How Do You Know?" by Joe Mills
2010: ""Don't Let Me Be Lonely [There was a time]" by Claudia Rankine
2009: "The Foot Thing" by Jane Routh
2008: "Sonnet on His Blindness" by John Milton
If you had asked me to stay,/I would not have said no./It would never mean yes.
Todd Davis
Try telling the boy who’s just had his girlfriend’s name
cut into his arm that there’s slippage between the signifier
and the signified. Or better yet explain to the girl
who watched in the mirror as the tattoo artist stitched
the word for her father’s name (on earth as in heaven)
across her back that words aren’t made of flesh and blood,
that they don’t bite the skin. Language is the animal
we’ve trained to pick up the scent of meaning. It’s why
when the boy hears his father yelling at the door
he sends the dog that he’s kept hungry, that he’s kicked,
then loved, to attack the man, to show him that every word
has a consequence, that language, when used right, hurts.
On this day in...
2011: "How Do You Know?" by Joe Mills
2010: ""Don't Let Me Be Lonely [There was a time]" by Claudia Rankine
2009: "The Foot Thing" by Jane Routh
2008: "Sonnet on His Blindness" by John Milton
If you had asked me to stay,/I would not have said no./It would never mean yes.