Targa Tale
this is the Targa that Bic made:
this is the pen that ate the page,
that stained my white sheets
with dark-blue blood-ink,
that ran out to the edge
and would not stop skittering
and jumping letters and bleeding
all over the rented carpet;
that tattooed my hand,
that hurt my index finger,
and black-rimmed my fingernails;
that insisted I keep it and not
return it to “pen-is use-less” body-dump,
although it scratched the book
and its ball was flattened;
that insisted it could change,
to learn the easy-line, upright-slant,
the warm rush of spontaneity
and handsome thought-harmony,
to skate freely across paper-skin
like a golden-eyed tiger—
that would become something perhaps
a little like what I had wanted,
when I reached for it in a
moment of raw longing to express
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