To make something clean,

You

must understand

that something else

will have to become dirty,

 leave a mark, a smudge,

a smear

elsewhere…

My mind keeps whispering

clean and purge

the pain

in the leg, the sciatic nerve,

the fearsome ache in the neck

and spine, and groin, and eyes

and take a cloth to the arm

and leave my mark there…

over

and over

again,

till

the focus of the dirt and dust

is captured in ridges

through my tattoo.

Ian D. Hall 2021