Scars Versus Tattoos

1.
Casey is an artist in skin. His arms and chest
Are a mesh of colors. An oil slick in a puddle
I reach across the bar and trace angels and demons
Imprisoned in chains of flames and skulls.

His painted arms are dangerous.
But his cheeks are a network of scars,
Remnants of awkward acne and
A drunken confrontation with a windshield.

2.
Cindy has a fairy tattooed on her belly.
She is gossamer and filligree, dainty
Toes and fingers pointing down and out.
Cindy is muscle hiking, swimming, bossing
Tawny sinew wrapped in gauze and long, black hair.

A thin silver scar climbs from her lip to her nose.
She earned this in an arguement with an 800 lb. brown bear.
She paints herself as a dancing fairy,
But ink won't cover the seams.
She is a woman who picks fights with giants.

3.
Franzo has Betty Paige in all of her jet black glory
Tattooed on his thigh. It was featured in a magazine.
There are skeletal wings in indigo folded on his back,
An angel plucked and starved.

He has a hundred hours in ink all over his body,
But on his shoulders and biceps are scars.
Years of adolescent pain carved out randomly --
Parallelograms, stars and ellipses --
All the tears he shed
In crimson beads which stained his t-shirt.

Dolphins in captivity swim against their cages,
Butt against the walls. They do this repeatedly,
Even though they bleed with yearning. Anguish
For the wide, indigo ocean. Each strike leaves a mark.
They scar along their flanks randomly --
Parallelograms, stars and ellipses.