POETRY
Afternoon — XII
Long live the after school bike ride,
patrolling the neighborhood
on two wheels at top speed,
with wind-watered eyes.
The hot scent of cut lawns
mingling with lighter fluid.
When, in the gloriously fluid
realm of childhood, there rides
through the air, across the lawns,
the siren song of the neighborhood,
opening wider every bright eye
and encouraging legs to gallop speedily
to the window, for a glimpse of the slow-speed
peddler of frozen sweet milky fluid,
their eager eyes
hitching a ride
on their begging voices: the neighborhood
ice cream truck meanders through the lawns.
Then over every lawn
it sends with all speed
its cry for takers in the neighborhood,
high on fluid
hopes, like a bird who rides
high on the wind, with eyes
