1

We together empty the design
Tattoos continue

Splaying gardens

And these hatched eggs in hedges

Borders trampled flowers

—Speaks only to the money

You are without

2

Money our meek adjustments
You need the animal slowing
Green

Spending green

Like breathing

In hedges          In gardens

Hedging slow

Writing that makes green money
Panthers on the pulse a way to vanish

____

"Applying Tattoos" helps me to think about what happens to the image at the end of Rilke's poem, its disappearance and all of its other translations. And yet I am without? For a few years now I have tried to think about the image of the disappearance of money and the way it moves; I have wanted in my writing, and in my current manuscript, Switches Hands, to find a proper appreciation for money—Sometimes I add coins to my poems and sometimes, as with this poem, the green was within reaches.

P.S. Howstuffworks.com offers "Care for Your New Tattoo(s)."