My Fictional Tattoo - Maybe Not-So-Much

Written down here, gentle readerIt seems too good to be trueBut there’s a girl in Kansas CityWith my favourite tattooOh why would I lie to you?

This was in another centurySomewhere near the summer’s endThe fahrenheit was frighteningI was awake the whole weekendInvited to a barbecueI found refuge in the kitchenDiscussing post-war US literatureWith a girl whose upper arm read “fiction”Like it might have been typewritten

I asked her its significanceShe said she sometimes took remindingWhat she wanted to be doingWhether reading it or writingI admitted admirationFor both typeface and intentAnd said more softly — sotto voce —I knew too well what she meantShe just smiledAnd in a while she went

For a time I forgot this ever took placeShe left her bottle on the bookcase

So though I leave you little optionBut to take me at my wordI assure you, dearest listenerThat it happened as you’ve heardA beer left on a bookshelfAt a bygone barbecueBy a girl from Kansas CityWith my favourite tattooOh why would I lie to you?Oh why would I lie to you?Oh why would I lie?

- “Fiction” by The Lucksmiths

I came across this. It spoke to me immediately. Happened serendipitously (you know I love that when it happens) while looking at ideas for a tattoo I want to get...Photo: From the film El Laberinto Del Fauno/Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Guillermo del Toro