Eleven and Dragons

I'm going to use a prompt from 365 Creative Writing Prompts today to spark my poem.  If you haven't figured it out already, I'm working my way down the Google list of prompts, and have just breached page 2 of the many many results.

I'm going to use #11: Dragon: Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.

I'm all about descriptive language. AND, I was born in the year of the dragon according to the Chinese zodiac charts found in (particularly) cheap-ass Chinese buffets. Also, I thought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was pretty bad ass, and would have a dragon tattooed somewhere on my body if I didn't think I'd come off like a pathetic over-50 copycat. 

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Dragon Tattoo

In dreams I bear a dragon tattoo --

purple and green and red, all shimmering scales

with wings that flex and flutter under my muscle

and a long strong tail to curl past my bicep

and underneath my white arm to touch its point

inside my elbow. The dragon is captured upright

in mid-flight, its eyes narrowed in glittering concentration,

a lick of smoke and flame caught in its wide nostrils,

a hint of brimstone flickering from its gaping, toothy mouth.

I take my dragon with me like a soul, moving

through midnight storms and nightmares with

liquid urgency, not afraid of any dream terrain.

Suspended on the canvas of my aging skin,

my dragon floats between old freckles bleeding out

into coffee clouds and incipient keratoses (scaly

skin volcanoes), a sinuous art deco S, clawed and fierce,

guardian for my imperfect body, everything hot 

and secret and powerful that (at least on the surface)

I am not.