She’d just grown up with it:
the smell of muscle and the clench of fist
some fucker yelling with whiskey on his breath
it was get a tattoo or shoot a goddamn gun.
They were too bloody young
but they were old enough to know
from the lip split rib cracked hand upside the head.
It was get a tattoo or shoot a goddamn gun.
Every year they got more hollowed out
beaten down left on the street.
If you wanted souvenirs in this family –
it was get a tattoo or shoot a goddamn gun.
eleanor j jackson 
I love your poems but I sense some sadness in them. So my leaving this comment is an ardent wish that I am wrong in sensing you are sad.
But Paul, that’s okay, there’s plenty of sadness to go around…