The split feather tatoo
I got in Chicago back in 97
I knew the artist from Sturgis
The year James forgot the “R” in Sturgis
And the guy went home with a “Stugis 95” tattoo
After she finished pounding the ink into my skin
It was well after midnight
And the endorphins were all played out
We went out for breakfast

A diner that the cabies used
Along with all the rags of people
who wandered through the night
Life tore off the edges
And replaced it with another at the center
Every few seconds
The hackneyed threadbare sullen
Surfeit in their staggering surrender
To an existence metered in minutes or millennia
All those souls falling into each other
Filling the poets veins

For the Lakota a split feather signifies
“Many Battles “
I had died enough but never died
I was no longer pretty
Or whole
To assuage that what kills
Just to stay alive
Sipping my coffee
Looking through the windows
Out into the collage of  concrete and humanity
It all made sense

Back out on the plains
I spit out the residue of my journey
The sun was setting
And my dust softly settled back to earth
I rubbed my new tatoo and smiled
As I sewed another page into my heart
A coyote sang his lonesome song
Somewhere behind me.....