Used One Speed, Princeton

Daisy Fried

I painted my bike purple,
it's finding a brown to fade to.
Along the long slow curve of streets
gelato-colored houses change in dusk
to colors of dove. On my one speed, life is plain.
Here the mudflats are called a river. I am feeling
new muscles in my thighs. My fat fenders
guard me from mud-splat. Look at these tires:
wide as trenches. My second-grade teacher said
"sit up straight." My ex-fiancé used to
put his hand through his hair,
make a fist, say "that's just them
trying to keep the working class docile."
The houses dim, colors of soap, the shaped kind
you put in little dishes, that shrink and melt
to goo. I sometimes feel rather shaky
but that's OK. I guard against regret,
disapproval, those middle-aged emotions.
I am still young, I feel I am. If I wanted I could
ride no-hands, my bike so steady, arms out
like that guy in Goya's Third of May, 1808,
with the white shirt, his eyes wide open,
facing death. I don't. I squint my eyes
against gnats. And so, and so, I was saying,
when a certain feeling comes over me,
something that feels like foolish bravery,
I glide, concede, I sit straight up.

"Used One Speed, Princeton" from My Brother is Getting Arrested Again, by Daisy Fried, Copyright 2006. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.