Caterpillar

Ink is raining again.

Stan, on the radio, rapping tattoos
onto white-trash girls,
sitting, spinning on bar stools.

The highway is moving ninety miles
back, to late August madness,
cars are splashing

into phone booths
left over from big cities
and light houses.

But ships don’t come in
like they used to.
The calm of the sea

isn’t the color of God’s
angry finger anymore.

Caterpillar!!

Across the back of my shoulder!
“To rob.” “To pillage.”
“To suck the ink out of every living thing.”

My name is not what matters.
The alphabet is random.
My fingers have no pattern.

I’m bound to and wrapped around each syllable
like a piece of cabbage.
An appetizer. A long, soft caterpillar
eating my way into you.