Bikes 1

Susan Brennan

We used to ride our bikes on the big road

past those two horses, golden and chestnut

always stopping, as cars did, to pet

their suede noses.  One of the last farms

soon to be swallowed by suburban snaking roads

where you could still smell hay and manure

sweet and musky tales of earth and

dandelion anarchy.  We could see ourselves

in their mirrored eyeballs with our hands flat

plates of sugar and apples as we leaned on the old grey fence

a sculpture saying forever will never count

built by hands now buried; and we would finally get to the store

buy candy necklaces and lip gloss and wait out back

for boys with beer cans and hope

a movie would happen to us

as if between our eyes a reel to reel was strung

I was looking for something that would burn my tongue

or make me change the way smoking and kissing

promised; the way secrets promise to make

a new planet of something simple –

but things stayed simple

my friend got pregnant at fifteen and moved away

I made new friends and kept trying

to find something that would lead to a different story

and I stopped stopping for the horses

although when I rode by on my bike

they recognized me, as a horse with wheels, would run alongside me –

and I was the free one, the one who would get out