Sample

Bicycle

This reminds me of how
On a saddle, perched up high
I watched the front wheel garner round
Slow as the world.

Then sound advice, recalled.
Hands to brake, and feet to ground
The measurement of safety.
Bit late now -

Then the panic down that hill.
I was a kid then,
Frightened I’d fall and hurt myself.
I probably will.

Picture Perfect

Turning through the pages
For a photograph of how it was
Before. Familiar gazes
Sunlit faces, young and glossy.

Another time, another world -
Entangled in a summer shirt,
The flash of sun on dappled grass,
The dreams before life stood you up.

The childhood smiles, blue sky, the grass
Yes. That’s when time stood still,
Eyes fixed upon the flight path
Of a sometime tennis ball.

Fifteen

I drape down the overhang,
My head full of science fiction
- I need a garden,

A pair of feet and a human form
Pass my parents’ lounge
- Curtains drawn.

The unsuspecting football
Settles down again:
The garden lawn

Has let outrageous footprints in.
I skirt around the limits
Of my parents’ lives

And out of sight.
They won’t catch me
With their suburban snares,

A model railway - CD player -
Their social smiles - don’t make me laugh -
A graduation photograph.

Their lives are decided
And mine is in front of me
- Be never so boring

Or lacking in fun.
It is me who is living
- I’ll grow up young.

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