How To Hold a Pen

STEP ONE

Curl your index:
The trembling interface
Reaching for the bulky lips
The first and the mast
Extending your acrylic to the vast god stars
Drawing pictures in the ink that swirl into the mist
Picking at the sugar jar
And tracing a line
Down
To the setting hell of dawn



STEP TWO

Meet the thumb:
Point, jab, weave, thrust
The thumb is heir to a million crumbs
Of bulky chores
The ape wriggles it and we fiddle it
But always call it first
First in use and first in tongue
The thumb is ancestor to script.

STEP THREE

Rest against middle
For lack of a better name
Middle is stupid, middle has no class
(Except to throw it up my-)
But there's no use mucking about
Roll our eyes and cast away
So you'd best do as you're told
Without middle, we'd all be fucked.

STEP FOUR

Like a prowling bee the tip breathes
The wood swells - vapour ghosted behind the rain veil
When does a droplet sing?
Giddy grin, quivering nails
The paper approaches - your Glory
Crouches to pounce
Devour the nebulous idea
Tear it to bloody shreds
Ignore men's aghast faces...

STEP FIVE

...Pause.
Blank.
Blink.

What now?

-©Estelle Wallis, May 2019