(In homage to William Carlos William)
Outside was my red bicycle
leaning against the wall
next to a red wheelbarrow
on which nothing depended on.
I was the kind of child who
was always daydreaming
himself to victory and today
I would win the Tour de France.
So the plan was to practice
beyond my own wobbling peddling,
like the unbalanced red wheelbarrow
my father pushed among the chickens.
I felt the heat, the flame of potential speed
where so much could happen
and depended on my straight control
in a world zooming by in flame
until the wind was red wings,
only my own red thoughts ablaze
in the warp and the things I hated
of the world were no longer in myself.
until I flew over the handlebars
hitting my forehead on a
sky blue Cadillac door handle,
the scar following me to the future.
Now I nick the tiny flames of memory,
as I push the red wheelbarrow
up the hill as if my life depended on it,
even as it always wobbles down to the chickens.
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