If we rode our bikes and the street was a feast of sound,
(while rain falls lightly, damp in the smell of dust,
and summer is hung in our nostrils, asphalt
and oil stain portraits) we would consider
motions, not vehicular threats but street-life
gathered: in boisterous bickers, bodies at play,
in laughter, maybe glares.

Over my shoulder, your image is steady,
follow: savoring households and neighborhood
children, naming dogs as you see them,
throwing those names to the wind, beyond my ear reach.

Later we groan in the language of hills, together,
words created by sweat, cramped arguments
of the sore knee, of the winded lung,
spilling syllables of life on cracked pavement,
caught in a gear shift.

I don’t know why you fear cars as much as you do
but we navigate sidewalks, dodging strollers, mothers,
dawdlers and gapers, watching for the traffic gap, I look behind
to you, for your wariness,
knowing I’ll dash to the other side, fearless
knowing you don’t hop curbs.

08/05/2004

Posted on 11/13/2005
Copyright © 2026 Jim Benz