Introduction to Tattoos by Keana Marin

(a poem based on “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html)


I ask you to look at tattoos
and see them as art
like they are plastered on a museum wall
or as if they were muerals along the streets.
I say press your nose into the life of a tattoo
like a child peering into a closed candy store
or wander into a tattoos room
and witness the sensuality of it.
I want you to see tattoos
with an open mind and heart
accepting the beauty of color on skin
but all you want to do
is strangle tattoos with false perceptions
and label them as an evil.
you begin beating it with your negative thoughts
and never really find out what it means.