--- A R I A N A -S O P H I A   K A R T S O N I S

tattooed on a whim
on a Sunday in the backseat
of a pink T-bird.

Ricochet waltzed in that day
a bad idea & then some.
Ramona had been craving real
& Ricochet he's nothing
if not real
bad-though he first bloomed right pretty 
to Ramona-the girl with the 
auction heart
going,going,gone.
The girl who hears grenadine as hand-grenade
& drinks Shirley Temples by the gallon.

Somewhere a Gypsy woman
read Ramona's hand
A wineglass will shatter
The evening will follow

A boy with a gunpowder
name will find you
the fortuneteller might've added.
& you'll evermore wonder
if it's worse to be lost
or found.

That's what happens in a town
of bad intentions
& not enough carry-through.
Boredom breeds trouble                  
& trouble is Ricochet's specialty.

Ramona only registers desire
that trickles over the heart
absinthe to a sugar cube
sting & erosion rushing through
a slotted spoon.

But back to the story where
months later in a room full of glazed people
drinking wine in orchestrated gestures
a hostess calls out:
Once more with feeling
& they all sip in ¾ time.

Ramona feels trapped at such affairs.
Everything so scarlet that way-the wine
the hostess and her velvet lady-dress,
the chintz brocade of the walls
the cherry syrup of Ramona's blood. 

Ramona's already boomeranged
& back to that spot in the room
where once-upon-a-time Ricochet left
light unstill-that pretty
damn Ricochet worrying
the room with his face.

That's when love kicked in
the door & broke all the glassware
her heart & her leg
before it broke for the door
& Ramona almost hurt
to see it go.

She wants the night back
when Ricochet road shotgun
all the way-seventy-nine miles
to THE SKIN STAIN off Route 6.
They arrived to the dimmed neon
of a sacred blazing heart
so cold-looking unplugged  
 & a sign flipped to CLOSED.
Right there in the parking lot
with Ramona's earring & a broken ballpoint
that wrong-hearted boy inscribed
R & R on his left thigh
& Ramona wished for a tattoo inside
her breast right on
the sad pear of her heart
& Ramona-always lucky
got her wish.