Advanced composition
& conversation
wednesday afternoon’s
grammar drills
working with my practice partner
the professoressa’s
compelling exhortation:
“In italiano, studenti!!”
in my head
I, no longer capable
of ignoring
my insistently chattering
urinary urge
politely & quietly
excuse myself
slinking artfully
up the aisle
tight with books
and student feet
quietly & politely
open the sealed steel
of a creaky classroom door
slip into the hall
quick-paced en route
through the cold
institutional corridors
my goal:
to catapult myself
incident-free
past the metal glass barriers
to land blissfully
in the room for men’s relief,
but not before responding
as when in Rome:
Grazie signore!
to a pleasant, well-dressed
now-befuddled
middle-aged man
who’d
politely & quietly
held wide-open
the heavy metal-glass portal,
as if instinctively recognizing
the sole possible significance
of the universal
unmistakable, unconcealable
anguish on my face,
to ease
a fellow traveller’s trip
to relieve
his pressing bladder