Schwinn

I hate the phrase “inner life.” My attic hurts, and I’d like to quit the committee for naming tornadoes. Do you remember how easy and sad it was to be young and defined by our bicycles? My first was yellow, and though it was no Black Phantom or Sting-Ray but merely a Varsity I loved the afternoon it was suddenly gone, chasing its apian flash through the neighborhoods with my father in vain. Like being a nuclear family in a television show totally unaffected by a distant war. Then we returned to the green living room to watch the No Names hold our Over the Hill Gang under the monotinted chromatic defeated Super Bowl waters. 1973, year of the Black Fly caught in my Jell-O. Year of the Suffrage Building on K Street NW where a few minor law firms mingle proudly with the Union of Butchers and Meat Cutters. A black hand already visits my father in sleep, moving up his spine to touch his amygdala. I will never know a single thing anyone feels, just how they say it, which is why I am standing here exactly, covered in shame and lightning, doing what I’m supposed to do.