Serenity Prayer

Not the woman from the poem.
Google "serenity tattoo" , click
on images, and
you may be amazed, as
I was, at the popularity of
what must take a great deal
of time to etch upon one's skin.

It couldn't be for her. A contortionist
would be unable to accomplish reading it
from one's own side, and
I would bet that she is not one, doesn't
have the build. Even if she read it
in a mirror, the letters would be backwards.
I sit ten feet away, she standing at the water's
edge, I reading in my artificial shade.
One breast is trying very hard to inch its
way into the public view (on her, not me)
but so far, red triangle strains to hold
it in, successfully. A little skirt of sorts is
covering the bottom, and I'm grateful
for this latent stab at modesty.
The wording's clearly visible, a walking
testimony to the trials and tribulations of
the Twelve Step life: SERENITY just
slightly down from armpit, COURAGE,
WISDOM written larger and in fancy script
for emphasis, as if the act of reading prayers from
off a woman's skin is somehow not emphatic
enough. Pregnant, or still bearing pregnant pounds
from little one upon the granddad's knee,
she looks to be late-twenties and I find
myself quite worried that if she knows
someone so intimately with need to read
an AA prayer each time he lies beside her,
there are issues to resolve.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013