Clare McCotter, Admission

Dementia Tattoo

She was there in the middle of it all –
bondage trousers and slogan T shirts,
oxblood DMs and time
spread out like a multitude of stars.
Hitting sixty now –
her spiked hair Persian red,
safety pins still gleaming the septum
of her heart. Faltering rarely
until that day that boy
popped a diagnosis out like a cash card.

They thought she would take it
same as everything else:
sifting research, making plans
forewarned forearmed; instead
curled up like a marcescent leaf –
pendant and waiting
some last severing wind.
Hanging there still
if not for the timbre
of a friend’s footfall falling on gravel
its echo in a red beating heart, echoing
a gut full of diamonds and moths.

In an ink shop laying flesh bare
she opens her book of maps
and the smallest swifts,
navigators of chasms and caves,
spiral in midnight blue.
From…