-first meaningful act of disobedience-

they gave me a bike

and I was going to use it.

what did they think

I was going to do with it?

where was it they assumed
I wouldn't go?

I was the cave-dweller

looking toward the horizon

beyond every sight and scent

of my neighborhood planet,—

out there, over the mountains

beyond the clouds
far from the river,

the open gates, the broken fences

across the backyards of no-man’s-land,

across the stiff meadow grasses

beyond the billboards,

the backsides of the billboards,
the sides without pictures,
the sides with the architecture,—

southward where the mill's granite
walls are red-colored,

where the trees at twilight seem
dressed-up and dancing like newer women,

where sound seems muted,—

out there, into the black-hole where nothing
looks like anything I've known
or smells the same as before

and I won't be coming back.

they said: “don’t ride it across the street.”

don’t ride it across the street?

they gave me a bike for christsake.

where’d they think I would't go?

                                     Quequechan