Word vomit

A summer Bike Ride through Wyoming


On my bike ride. I see an old face: Justine's mother's,
though I didn't realize it at the time.
Her voice's recognizing inflection on "Hello,"
--that crescendo on "Lo,"
as if she knew me,
turned the rusty wheel of time.
I leave her with a nod one would leave a stranger
and ride on.

Memories pass by my bike in waves, and
like fireflies, they act as brief illuminating nostalgia
that quickly clicks to darkness.

While I preoccupy my feet with running stop signs,
I fight to remember snippets of my childhood,
but all I can see is any white girl
on the front porch of any brick house in any upper middle class community.
No--our porch was red. Our house was long.
I was creamy. I was androgynous.
I am.

I keep riding, passing house after house of young families
in their yards. They're rushing to collect
memories before the crickets grow too loud
like they always do.

But each family loses that race and so do I,
surrendering to that much wiser chorus
amplifying in the trees: "Slow, slow."

I do not slow; I ride on,
past the community garden brightened by sunflowers,
and past the Mill Creek and railroad tracks,
unable to escape that urgent rattle,

but thirty Maples and seven blocks later, I arrive home.
Dusk is just beginning to smell like the coming of dew,
and I could have kept riding for hours.
I could have gone anywhere else.