Al Maginnes: Lydia Loveless’s X

She says fuck as many times as she wants

when she talks between songs of flesh betrayed

and reclaimed. And just over her heart,

a tattooed X, a set of crossed sticks, stitched

into the skin with a sewing needle and ink,

jailhouse style. Maybe a first tattoo,

something small and easy to hide, roadmaps

for the larger designs decorating her arms



and shoulders, the way chords point to songs.

The vine tattooed on the arm of the man

beside me looks strangled in the glare from stage.

Doubtless my tattoos puzzle him too.

Lydia Loveless hitches her guitar, counts alone

into one more song that comes fighting

out of the place songs come from, the place

she has already marked with an X.

Copyright 2024 Al Maginnes

Al Maginnes has published poems in Poetry (Chicago), Georgia Review and Plume. His many books include Fellow Survivors, New and Selected. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.