Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I DREAMT I WAS "THE TATTOOED LADY" IN MY MAIDENFORM BRA...


                                                                                                                                                                    I DREAMT I WAS "THE TATTOOED LADY"IN MY MAIDENFORM BRA...

Every year when I was a little kid,
Sideshows set up with “The Big Top”
In Lighthouse Field.
Elephants trumpeting
Echoed throughout our urban landscape.
Electricity of anticipation filled the air.
The circus was in town.

“I saw the The Tattooed Lady from the circus at the supermarket today”, my mother said.
My imagination drew a colorfully engraved  exotic beauty.
“What did she buy?What was she wearing?” I thought.

That night we went to the circus and passed the sideshow tent.
The Tattooed Lady was  garishly painted on the canvas flap.
“Can I  please go in to see The Tattooed Lady?”, I asked.
“No”,my mother said, “you are too young,”
Trained not to talk back, I thought "Too young?Wasn’t she in the supermarket today?”
What was going on inside of that tent?
That night I dreamt of The Tattooed Lady.

At 21,I decided to get a tattoo.
On my lunch hour.
Harry’s Tattoo Parlor in Chinatown
Five dollars.
On my wrist,outlined in black.
Tiny red heart.
“Buzz”
The sting of the needle.
On flesh
“Buzz”
Vibrations.
Of the adrenaline rush.

My mother was horrified when she saw my tattoo.
“Only ex-cons,prostitutes and sailors have tattoos”,she said.
A perspective of her times.
My boyfriend was horrified when he saw my tattoo.
“Only ex-cons,prostitutes and sailors have tattoos”,he said.
A perspective he used.
To drift away.
(I never liked him much anyway.)

That night dreamt  I got another tattoo.
And another.
And another.
And I was The Tattooed Lady.



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