The Feeling of Needing a Pen

Really, like a urine but even more gold,

I thought of that line and I felt it, even

between two legs I felt it, the legs I wrote

just now, a panic, a run-walk to the private

room with a picture of a woman

on the door, or else the line was long, too long,

I barged into the men's, and felt stares burning

hard like reading or noon, felt them looking

me up and over, felt them looking me over

and down, and all the while just holding their

pens,

they do it different oh no they don’t,

they do it standing up, they do it at the window,

they do it so secret in a three-hour bath, they do it

aloud to someone else, their wife is catching

every word and every word is gold. What you eat

is in it, blackberries for breakfast are in it,

fat atoms of Shakespeare and Hitler are in it.

The sound of water makes me need to: Atlantic,

Pacific, Caspian, Black. I feel it so much because

I am pregnant, I am pregnant with a little self,

ll of its self

is that spot on a dog that causes its leg to kick.

It kicked and I felt and I wrote that last line. Even

now it’s happening. I eat only asparagus like arrows,

I am famous for my aim. I get almost none on my hands,

almost. Under my feet the streets, under the streets

the pipes. Inside the pipes a babble sound.