Out Of The Gate

Out of the Gate

My bike was a pony once.

Lacking all originality,

I called her Buttermilk, after

Dale Evans’ fairy buckskin,

but after all, I was only

eight.

We rode the trails of north chicago

cantered through long-armed elm-roofed tunnels,

barely escaping their scrabbling fingers,

across acres of glass-strewn treacherous

desert concrete, along the weedy mountain ridge 

of the el. She picked her way with intelligent care, 

one delicate black hoof after the other

through the perilous car-infested rapids

of sheridan road.

Wherever we roamed on that big range

she never let me down.

She stayed like a quarterhorse

when I dropped the reins

and ran like a thoroughbred out of the gate

when I raced her with Donny

whose bike had no name at all.

Now I’m on a new pony, waiting

at the gate, under a leafless roof

looking down the long stretch,

sitting slumped in the saddle

surrounded by fences,

no legs to pump the peddles

but, still…

I wonder how fast

she can go?

April 2011

Posted for OneShootSunday at the inimitable OneStopPoetry 

Title Image: Photo by Greg Laychak