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Helena Nelson

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Peeing Song

I frequently pee in the shower.
More often I pee in the bath.
Outside on the ground when there’s no-one around
I pee and I pee and I laugh.

On occasion I pee on the hearth rug,
then scrub it and wash it and boil it.
When my mother is here we are very austere
and both of us pee in the toilet.

My cousin pees daily when drinking green tea -
she does the whole thing with élan.
Like a fountain she pees and with great expertise
insists that she pissed in the pan.

I have an old friend in Ohio -
her bladder is second to none.
How sad for the person she pees on.
She calls him (such subtlety!) John.

I pee when the moon is ascending
or when my silk underwear nips;
I pee with huge might in the depths of the night
and during each solar eclipse.

I pee when I’m writing my poems:
they begin with a ‘p’ and they end
with an ‘s’ like the hiss of a wee that has missed
or a flush that has gone round the bend.

 


Helena Nelson works in a further education college in Fife. When she was at school, she played the triangle in the Senior School Orchestra. She is now performing a simlilar role in the world of contemporary poetry.

 

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