Aaron Belz

Havana Brown

My pen happens to be a Parker 45—
a standard business model,
and I say “happens to be”

because it could be any old chrome
fountain pen with a gold nib,
it just so happens that this particular pen

has worn in very nicely, while others
of my pens (a Lamy, for instance,
bought in Dublin, and an expensive

Parker Sonnet) never quite have.
My ink brand is Waterman’s
Havana brown. The backstory is that

a famous poet who is a friend of mine
and whose name I shan’t be so careless
as to drop used to write me letters

in brown ink, and I finally inquired
after it, and he was delighted
to fill me in on all the details of how

Havana brown is the smoothest—
how he bought his in Barcelona first—
and there are all these romantic stories

connected to it. And now there are
an increasing number of romantic
stories connected to my own brown quill,

including my failure in marriage,
my loss of employment, etc.
A blessing, all a blessing.


***
***