Bike Riding Poem

10th Street is quiet at 1:00AM, when even the cats have gone to sleep.
But there are places to be, and cutting-edge, styleful,
never-to-be-seen-again dance moves to be performed
under jerking, acidic club lighting in hard-to-find lofts,
which overlook the wide green mouth of the Gowanus.
So you perch yourself on the seat of a bike,
pedaled by a woman drunk on whiskey and springtime,
and hold onto her warm sides as you roll down the slope, past
brownstones and broken streetlamps and cars
squeezed together so tightly that it strikes you as
a heart-wrenching humanoid imitation of a divine Utopian ideal,
where everyone gets a car and everyone gets a parking space.

There, clutching the milk crate tied to the back of the bike,
with your hips pressed against her
like a perverted version of a simple idea,
you are unexpectedly confronted with your stiff-necked, intractable self.

But, fleetingly, the opposite appears: you as an ancient butterfly,
full of lightness and depth and all the wisdom that comes from
having seen landslide
after landslide
after landslide
after landslide
in your million years of unhurried evolution,
ready to answer the inexorable call of stamens and petals,
ready to float down 10th Street in complete, utter, balls-to-the-wall trust
of the troublemaker, lowlife, loudmouth lady you adore
who helms the bike, and
who cared enough to offer you the seat behind her.