It’s Always Something

It’s a highly decorated
species of a thing.
It wears its yellow young
around its neck – offspring
it derives from cool

parthenogenesis

(the nemesis of sex).
Hermaphroditic single
parent that it is, it neither
needs nor beckons

to much company:
apart from tattoo artists
at the peak of their sharp
needling expertise:
preferably skilled in

calligraphic black. Not many
creatures in its species
have the knack. Not
perhaps surprising
when you fathom

how the tattoo client
treats them. Once
the skin’s been pricked
with a sufficiency of line,
the tattoo client eats them.

.