Once Tattoos Were Exciting

And a little dangerous.
Now they are merely boring
Encompassing more bad art
Then a hallmark card.

Once I hung out with smokers
Finding them more interesting
Than non smokers
Unfortunately, I was an unsuccessful
smoker.

I gave up smoking
When it was neither exciting nor safe
To steal fags from my father’s silver case.
Turkish to the left, Virginian to the right,
I couldn’t tell the difference
both tasted exhilarating and bitter

I preferred the pipe
but pipe tobacco made me sick
so I took the moral —and cheaper—
high ground and became a non-smoker.
Though I wanted a woman who was hot and smoky
I never had a woman who smoked

I wanted kisses sweet and fresh smelling.
But I did want a woman with tattoos on her body.
Like those two women on the subway
Whose sexy low-cut blouses revealed
Tattoos on their breasts
One  a butterfly, the other a rose.
They pretended to ignore me
while I pretended to read the paper.
I followed them to the end of the line
where they removed themselves, giggling
my eyes buried in my unread paper
their giggles their tattoos engraved on my memory.
None of the women who wanted me
would tattoo themselves.
I tried to  tattoo them myself.
That didn’t work out well.