Tattoo

Through their observations regarding an older man wandering a “yard sale” (Line 10), the speaker comments on the physical shifts that happen as men age and pass from sexual potency. The current age of the man is made clear by the description of the tattoo on his “bony old shoulder” (Line 4). Further, the tattoo that “once” (Line 1) made a “statement” (Line 1) has faded with time to look like “just a bruise” (Line 3). The speaker believes that once the man was “strong as a stallion” (Line 8), someone who “you had to reckon with” (Line 7). Popular myth uses the aggressive stallion as a symbol of virility, often surrounding the lone horse with several mares, although this is not always biologically accurate. In this poem, the symbol is used traditionally to stand for male vigor. When younger, the man was ruled by the “vanity” of his masculinity (Line 5), and the speaker believes the subject got the tattoo because “the ache” (Line 6) of rejection “lingered on” (Line 6). Now, no longer “fast and ornery” (Line 8), the man is not the leader, like a stallion, but just “another old man” (Line 13) who meanders around the displays, examining “tools and putting them back” (Line 14).