Fragments

Fragments

(Against September 11, 2001)

by Brendan Galvin

1.

He breezed past me on a bike so thin
it looked bulletproof, another spandex
superhero, I thought, until he came back
slowly, sagging and loud, both hands
on the grips, talking to nobody
on this road given over to birdsong.
Both towers? He was almost screaming now.
Both? Another vacationer losing
his mind at his leisure, until I saw
the headphone clamped to his helmet.

From "Song For My Father"

(Sometimes you could be)

by Yusef Komunyakaa

Sometimes you could be
That man on a red bicycle,
With me on the handlebars,
Just rolling along a country road
On the edge of July, honeysuckle
Lit with mosquito hawks.
We rode from under the shady
Overhang, back into sunlight.
The day bounced off car hoods
As the heat & stinking exhaust
Brushed against us like a dragon's
Roar, nudging the bike with a tremor,
But you steered us through the flowering
Dogwood like a thread of blood.

This is one stanza of a longer poem about his father, and their complicated relationship. The whole thing is here and well worth reading. The poem makes me realize that for nearly all of us, learning to ride and our earliest bicycle experiences are also crucial Father experiences and among the lessons we learn in what a father is.