Names in Ink

“‘Marriage is one thing... but a tattoo is permanent!’” From a Reader’s Digest anecdote

I saw a man with four tattoos:
One “Karla” underneath the place
Of paint rolled in three streaks of blues,
Each trace of exes to erase.

When Karla saw herself replace
The women’s names inscribed in ink
(Cassandra, Jessica, and Grace),
I wonder if she stopped to think...

One day, their hearts won’t be in sync,
And his commitment’s not too strong.
Hence Karla’s name within a blink
Will be rolled out and moved along.

Too few these days can see the wrong
Or what the world is forced to lose
When marriage doesn’t last as long
As people’s names in old tattoos.

-Joshua C Frank

First Published in Snakeskin

Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland.  His poetry has also been published in The Society of Classical Poets, Snakeskin, The Lyric, Sparks of Calliope, Westward Quarterly, New English Review, Our Day’s Encounter, The Creativity Webzine, Verse Virtual, The Asahi Haikuist Network, and LEAF Journal, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism and The Creativity Webzine.