On the Removal of My Nipple Rings After Twenty Years

 
I’d always felt my nipples 
were neither here nor there 

so therefore pierce 

and tug  
yet never tugged  

into a zone erogenous, just  
zeitgeist—that modern primitive thing 
I’d read about. I was no primitive  
nor exactly modern: androgynous vintage,  
asexual barrette. My trailer cute  
if a bit off-pink. 
 
* 

I’d just turned 24, homo-neurotic  
St. Sebastian 
in hydraulic salon chair—tattoo parlor  
chatty—a swing-arm task lamp 
—tyranny of slotted forceps— 
the piercer and her  
surgical gloves. She says don’t move.  
She says she’s studying to be a nurse. 
 
		(Each ring holds a captive bead.)  
		
I remember sulfur baths 
at a fancy spa. I’m 31, too uptight  
for massage though imagine me 
imagining the water 
pouring straight up from hell,  
acrid, tap into tub, a curative
that I’m warned may tarnish jewelry  
—meaning don’t sink  
nipples deep. I remember marble 
and white-diamond tile and 
me of all people in 
my pierced nudity, my faint vitiligo. 

		(They indicate through a t-shirt, 
				each bead on its ring, 
		yet never did I tell my mother
		or set off a metal detector.)  

Soberly now, mostly, a tender 44 
—I remember being forced  
to strip. Cops around me like 
spinning tanks, their crosstalk 
decides me  
not eligible for the holding cell  
where no jewelry is allowed. 
They debate using bolt cutters.  

		(Each ring begged tug but never 
		did I know what it meant, as pierced as air.) 

I remember zooming in  
to find myself reflected in  
the bead of my friend’s nipple ring 
and titling the photo “Self-Portrait” 
until I retitle it “Untitled.” 

*

Someday an autopsy  
may observe me closely enough, noting 
signs of former piercings—nipples—
yet still I don’t care enough to regret 
the $50 per.  
Until the end my beginner gauge  
merely alluded to fetishwear anyway. 

What pleases me instead? The black buttons  
on my winter coat agree. It’s snowing.