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