At the “Visceral Alchemy: Fine Art + Tattoo” exhibit at Carbondale Arts, I find a temporary tattoo of a human heart, rendered more anatomically faithful than the two humps and sharp point of an emoji. But the aorta, pulmonary artery and venae cavae of this tiny tattoo heart are plants and vines. Planets float inside the left and right ventricles. It is delicate and whimsical but would never work tucked behind a real sternum, between two human lungs.
I moisten a sponge, peel away the clear plastic protector and place the fine-lined black artwork carefully on the inside of my arm, the soft flesh that doesn’t see much sun. I set it horizontally so both I and anyone looking can view it without craning the neck this way or that. I dab it with a warm sponge and press hard enough to feel the gentle, rhythmic throb of my pulse.
The tattoo is small, less than an inch tall and barely half an inch wide. I choose it to remind myself of my nephew, whose heart was complicated like this one, with things jutting where they shouldn’t and misshapen parts throwing everything out of balance. A heart not built for aerobics, or growing past 29.
I don’t want to remember that, but I want to remember him: his thick brown eyebrows, carefully manicured; the way his eyes flattened into lines when he smiled; his sense of style, his impeccable wardrobe; his calculated nature, letting only certain people close; his car outfitted with a good sound system; his love for Spidey, Hulk
and Cap.
He wrote me once and said his biggest fear about dying was that people might not remember him. He knew he would die young. Maybe I knew it, too, but as his aunt, I refused to face it. I haven’t faced it yet.
And so I get this temporary heart tattoo while passing through the art show in my small Western Colorado town. Maybe
I should get a permanent one, a tiny forever-flawed heart on the vulnerable side of
my arm, black lines criss-crossing above my arteries and veins, to let him know:
Nephew, you are not forgotten.