The Bicycle

those were the days when nothing hurt yet,
pedalling like a dumb kid through the maize fields of Southern Africa,
dust choking the air,
wire fences ripping at your legs if you got too close,
the sun baking everything into one long stupid dream.
then bam, over the handlebars, eating dirt,
picking bloody gravel out of a knee with a filthy twig,
digging deep till the wood scraped the nerve and the world went white-hot,
Jesus, that hurt, real hurt, the kind you remember
when everything else fades.
now I pedal through Cambridge
like an old drunk staying upright by miracle,
Mill Road sliding into East Road, Parkside,
chlorine hitting me like a cheap perfume memory—
Mary Jane by the pool,
that black speedo tied with a drawstring I never figured out,
her laughing while I stood there with no clue.
across parker’s piece, the coaches belch diesel,
London-bound idiots staring out like cattle,
the stink wipes my head clean for a second, thank God.
then into Emmanuel, slow now,
geraniums blasting pollen up my nose,
free summer headache, the kind that feels almost like being alive.
finally over Victoria bridge— the great divide,
Jesus Green one side, Midsummer Common the other,
sun doing its lazy golden bullshit across the grass,
warm, almost kind, before I coast down to the Old Spring,
one quick bottle of wine to kill whatever’s left rattling in my head,
then home, wherever the hell that is anymore.

bottle whispers lie,
drunk dawn cracks the skull open—
empty glass, repeat.