Sharon Black

Urination For Girls

Mornings are a rush:
the bladder’s quick release,
last night’s wine or water
a golden gush accelerating hard
speeding down
the main road before
purring to a halt.
Outdoors is best. Crouched
in long grass, that deluge
into soil can make a woman giddy
with its rightness:
the blunt and hot necessity,
the nutty vapour
rising like an aura
above the steam.
Misjudged, an ardent piss
can soak a shoe,
saturate the pants,
leave her with a nettle rash
or a gusset full
of burrs.

But better a woman’s surge
than a man’s dejected arc,
one hand on his limp
and slug-like cock,
a single braid of pee
showering the grasses,
or his toy gun firing
machismo at the wall,
slurring slogans onto brickwork, tarmac,
competing with his pal
behind the Rose and Crown
who can hit the furthest point,
the sputter, halt and
sputter till it’s through.
A woman directs herself
straight down into soil,
genitals just
inches from the surface
the stem of her so strong it could lift her
like a gorgeous lily above
a flowerbed of dew.

(published in The Interpreters House, Feb 2017)