BICYCLE

BICYCLE

When I was in eleventh grade

In John Bowne High School

I got a job at Bialow Drugs

Making a little over three dollars an hour

I was the stock boy

Threw out the garbage

And also did the deliveries

Where usually I would get a small tip

A quarter

Fifty cents

Sometimes even a dollar

I made the deliveries

Not with a bike equipped with

A fancy electric motor

My bike was old

Heavy

One speed

And had a metal basket in the front

Where I put the supplies

It was challenging

Peddling the bike 

Up the hills

But I managed

Once going downhill

On 108th

The chain snapped

Now I am speeding down

A busy street

With a bike that could pass 

For a tank

I can't stop

Moms with baby carriages are crossing

And I'm yelling at them to get out of the way

I know this seems like I am making it up

A fantasy

Repeated over and over

Until each time it seems 

More real

More exciting 

I had to get the bike to stop somehow

In a blur of a moment

I saw a spot between

The curb and a tree

Before parking the bike

I jumped off like an Olympic acrobat

And made a safe landing

Put the chain back

And drove uneventfully back to the store

No one believed what had just happened

Since this was the good bike

Only a few years old

I threw out the garbage

And went home

The thing is 

Sometimes even I question if this happened

All I know is

I quit the job shortly after