Tattooed and Pierced

Rhode Island to San Francisco
should have been enough
distance
Inheritance rejected
because I was destined
for "other" ness
I chose ink to do it
I remember the shimmy
of the tattoo artist's needle
as she wiped my shy blood
from her work: a Japanese koi
brushed red and white scales
set against blue
finger-curled Hokusai waves
on a diagonal
between my right and
left nipples
plugged with metal
the fish looking to land
somewhere
above my stomach
It's these marks
that make me
somebody
colored