The Pen

“a pen already writing”

—Ted Hughes, “The Blackbird,”

Birthday Letters

Your Scheaffer pen—

Streamlined, scribbling, sleek

Writing with its demon’s schlep—

Looping on your elm tree desk

Then already writing wary things—

Writing things right away

The yawning presence writing—

Waiting for something to speak

And then the pen shuts up—

Too much has already been said

A woman in a bottleneck—

Singing like a blackbird