Todd Davis

Try telling the boy who__ just had his girlfriend__ namecut into his arm that there__ slippage between the signifierand the signified. Or better yet explain to the girlwho watched in the mirror as the tattoo artist stitchedthe word for her father__ name (on earth as in heaven)across her back that words aren__ made of flesh and blood,that they don__ bite the skin. Language is the animalwe__e trained to pick up the scent of meaning. It__ whywhen the boy hears his father yelling at the doorhe sends the dog that he__ kept hungry, that he__ kicked,then loved, to attack the man, to show him that every wordhas a consequence, that language, when used right, hurts.