Seven chapters, one for each tattoo. For each tattoo, the author juggles several threads, twined about eachother like smoke - he describes getting the tattoo, and the events leading up to it, in paralell with his childhood, film noir, whatever fits, a smoldering tapestry of ink and color.
I don't know if I've ever felt so inspired in my life. My tattoos all mark things I've learned, things so important I wanted them permanently inked in my flesh, my personal reality, my truth, bound to me for as long as I live.
Tempting thing to write about, really, philosophy and experience and faith and despair. What I've learned, and what I haven't. The way fingertips feel on my inked wrist (I'm one of those people who happens to be allergic to tattoo ink, and every dot of ink, when it heals, leaves the skin supersensitive beneath it), or traveling in Nicaragua with a just-barely-healed tattoo, or
Hm. Thank you,