Bicycle

BICYCLE

Sunglasses chewed off by the blue of the sky

Everything just barely came up to me

From its smell

O, I came upon a wind.

Horse or bike, I came upon a wind.

Transport to the small parts

of summer’s roadside

O, the wheels came off.

This is afternoon, the world goes by.

I love my pet machine upon which

the world drifts saliently,

then am stopped, as if

I knew how to talk to the past

flying through it with steel beneath

no breathing but

the wheel’s form kept to.

My head was protected.

If and only if

I hit the pavement wrong,

a veer or profane wobble

from crossing over,

meeting a roadside dead creature,

stark as pastels.

One’s arms are strange things, don’t cross them.

A buckle in the asphalt the trees make,

the mature or quick growing ones:

they make you real careful, good friend,

Flesh moving along the bone.