Remember learning to ride your bike? Minnesota poet Dave Healy has captured the experience with poignant precision.
First Bike
At Montgomery Wards the bikes and trikes
were segregated and arranged by size.
My father made a deal: I could have
the biggest trike or smallest bike—
no choice at all for any five-year-old.
When we got home he got a wrench
and attached the training wheels.
I rode that four-wheeler for a year
or so until one day my father said
“I think it’s time to take then off.”
He got a wrench and did the deed.
How did he know that it was time?
For when I climbed aboard the craft
that had been shorn of its supports
I pedaled off as if I had been riding
two-wheelers all my life.
Halfway down the block I stopped
and turned around. My father stood
there, wrench in hand, looking for
the son who left him far behind.
At Montgomery Wards the bikes and trikes
were segregated and arranged by size.
My father made a deal: I could have
the biggest trike or smallest bike—
no choice at all for any five-year-old.
When we got home he got a wrench
and attached the training wheels.
I rode that four-wheeler for a year
or so until one day my father said
“I think it’s time to take then off.”
He got a wrench and did the deed.
How did he know that it was time?
For when I climbed aboard the craft
that had been shorn of its supports
I pedaled off as if I had been riding
two-wheelers all my life.
Halfway down the block I stopped
and turned around. My father stood
there, wrench in hand, looking for
the son who left him far behind.
~ Dave Healy (c) 2018
See another of Dave's poems when he was featured last year here.
Thanks for sharing these poems, Jane! I really enjoy reading them.
ReplyDeleteMary