The Consolation of Philosophy Karin Gottshall My philosophy walks around inked with all the tattoos I ever decided against: delicate vine at her nape, biceps twined with lapis patterns and fiery-scaled dragons, lucky coins scattered across her belly, the sign of Pisces at her hip. My philosophy curses like a sailor, too, and doesn’t mind bringing strangers home—I stumble from my room at midnight, blinking, to find her pressed against the kitchen counter, someone’s hands in her hair, his mouth against hers— not that my philosophy is easy. Some mornings she chain-smokes. “Do as I say,” she says, “not as I do.” And some mornings she sits around in her robe reading Boethius, laughing. She says the problem with philosophies today is they have no flair for the dramatic, no sense of style. She says philosophies today don’t know their business. Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking up some new tattoos. “Does it hurt?” I ask. “Not at all,” she answers, smiling, stroking the unmarked flesh of my wrist. “Pain is your prerogative”—as a black bracelet of barbed wire seeps into her, and a serpent spirals up her calf. Karin Gottshall lives in Middlebury, Vermont, and has taught writing at Middlebury College and Interlochen Arts Academy. Her first book, Crocus, was published by Fordham University Press in 2007. Recent work appears in Field and Harvard Review. “The Consolation of Philosophy” appears in our Autumn 2010 issue.