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Its permanence is another reason a tattoo works as a symbol for love.  According to American society, love can only be achieved after an extensive amount of time committed monogamously to your A? mate.  MUCH LIKE A PERSONNEL DIRECTOR GOING THROUGH A PILE OF RESUMES, Dating is the time period beforehand for sorting out applicants and rejecting those whose credentials do not meet current wants and needs and shows no potential for growth, not unlike a job application<<NOTE CHANGE NOTED ABOVE.  <<NICE TRANSITION>>Tattoos require the same careful consideration and commitment.  As people age, they experience new life experiences, altering their perceptions of the world around them, shaping their interests.  Your<<A tattoo has to satisfy current needs as well as future needs.  It is ingrained in your skin forever, enduring the daily shedding of thousands of epidermis cells.<<NICE DETAIL  A rash decision could mean being seared with an image or quote that does not represent what you want to portray.  In tattoos and dating, you want to commit to someone with whom you can imagine a future. 

“First Poem for You,” which juxtaposes the permanence of her lover’s tattoo with the frailty of the new relationship, depictsING the speaker’s apprehension in making a lasting commitment to her lover.  The reader knows the relationship is new instantly from the title. “First Poem for You” implies that this is the first of many poems for her lover.<<REFERENCE BACK TO PERMANENCE?  With this understanding, Addonizio’s avoidance of emotional references, and her focus on physical and natural feelings, “touch,” “skin,” and “instinct,” allows the reader to see that the two are infatuated, not in love (1, 10, 5).  This idea is emphasized when she describes sex with him as “taking you until we’re spent/and quiet on the sheets,” (8-9).  Sex can either be considered an act of love, a consummation of their commitment to each other, or simply an act of pleasure.  If she wanted to portray the speaker’s deep and unwavering love for the man, she would have referred to sex as making love, or something to that affect.  However, she debases sex to a physical act.  She also never hints at cuddling or affection afterwards,<<COLON merely calling it “quiet” reads SEEMS formal and unfamiliar. If she were to choose this man to be committed to monogamously for an extensive amount of time, she would have to know him on a deeper level than memorizing his tattoos by touch in the dark. 

The speaker  is drawn to him physically, letting the chemicals of her body dictate his relevancy as a candidate for a lasting commitment before reason gets a chance to read  his resume’.  He fulfills her current interest of sex, her physical need, but cannot fulfill her emotional needs.  >>SET UP QUOTE IN MORE DETAIL>>“Whatever persists/ or turns to pain between us,” implies that she is expecting pain, expecting the few kernels of good between them to turn to heartbreak  (11-12).   How can they grow together when she is waiting for them to fail?  Yet, the tattoo will last longer than she and he will together. In fact, “such permanence is terrifying,” is reason shaking her shoulders and trying to convince her that he is not right for the job (13).  MAKE THE CONNECTION CLEARER TO LOVE HERE.  A relationship cannot be based solely on sex; it can work in the present, but there is no future.  It is the equivalent of getting a thoughtless tattoo of Hello Kitty at sixteen and expecting it to continue to be relevant at forty-three<<GREAT SPECIFICS.  It can’t. She cannot have a fulfilling life with someone she does not feel a deeper connection to than the surface.  However, she wants to make it more than physical, “but touch them, trying,” (14).  She is “trying” to mold him to her future or mold her future to him, trying to fit together mismatched pieces (14).  She wants the ideal of a love that can withstand time and changing perceptions, but she does not want to wait and go through the due process of weeding out the ineligible people.  She is trying to convince herself that a Hello Kitty tattoo – OR LOVE WITH THE MAN IN THE POEM -- will still be relevant in her middle-aged years, that it will delve deeper than the surface.

GLAD TO SEE YOU REALLY STRETCHING OUT IN THIS PARAGRAPH  YOU ENGAGE THE READER WITH VIVID DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALOGIES TO MAKE YOUR POINT CLEAR.  WORK NOW SUPPLYING THE RUNNING CONNECTIONS BACK TO YOUR TOPIC THAT KEEP READERS FOCUSED ON YOUR MAIN POINT.

Thesis: “The Tally Stick,” by Jarold Ramsey, embodies comfortable love through time symbolism, nature, and marriage.

            The image of time passing suggests that the speaker’s relationship has evolved into comfortable love.  Rather than a stocky scrapbook glutTED<<FILLED? with glossy photos of first dates, bad haircuts, and failed trends of years past<<GREAT DETAILS – MAKES FOR ENGAGING READING, Ramsey utilizes a tally stick to symbolize the length of time the speaker’s relationship has lasted. Time is the key element of comfortable love.  It cannot be achieved on the first date or the first month, sometimes not even the first year.  It can take years of being with someone to know everything about them from how they take their coffee to how they are uneasy with the infinite stretch of the universe.<<GREAT ANALOGY: BESPEAKS THE IDEA OF COMFORT The speaker’s relationship has undoubtedly lasted long enough to fall into comfortable love.  The tally stick starts out “the length of your arms/ outstretched,” and is now “whittled nearly end to end,” suggesting that they lived a whole life together (lines 3-4, 20). The speaker carves important events into the tally stick, significant to the couple.  Therefore, for the stick to be “scrimshaw,” when it was once “hard and rare,” at its start, many years, or at least many events have occurred to have needed to carve that deeply into the stick, therefore a great expanse of time has passed to not only experience the events but to also carve them into the stick (line 21, 4). Additionally, “regret,” is an emotion contingent on the past, often associated with the end of life and feeling discontented by previous decisions (line 22)<<GREAT READING OF THIS WORD.   “Yet let us take it up,” insinuates that despite the regrets that “polish” the stick, the couple remembers the love shared between the two, deciding to relinquish blame for the past, because it ultimately leads them to this love, “in one another’s blameless eyes go blind,” (line 23, 28).  The tally stick is a constant reminder of the love that filled their lives.
            Furthermore, the tally stick is a commemorative of the speaker’s life with his partner. “Secret,” and “share,” insinuate that the meanings assigned to the markings are for their own indulgences, whereas a scrapbook is a smattering of carefully picked photos for other people to look at and try to understand and draw their own conclusions (line 2, 5). The tally stick is private.  “Random” implies that the moments chosen are not necessarily these huge milestone moments like the birth of their children, but everyday moments that carry weight for the couple (line 15).  Milestone moments are for scrapbooks, but everyday moments are significant in comfortable love; a life can be built upon little moments. <<NOT AS CLEAR HOW THIS PARA IS CONNECTED TO TIME.

Works Cited

Ramsey, Jarold. “TITLE OF POEM.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd >>INDENT THESE LINES ed. EDS. ___, ___, AND ____. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.​  PAGE NUMBER FROM BEGINNING TO END OF POEM

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NICE WRITING HERE.  GLAD THAT YOU’RE CONSCIOUSLY TRYING TO KEEP THE READER HAPPY BY INCLUDING INVENTIVE WORDING: KEEP IT UP.
WORK NOW ON MAKING SURE ALL PARTS OF THE PARAGRAPH ARE CLOSELY CONNECTED TO YOUR TOPIC SENTENCE.

© David Bordelon 2015