-an examination of a previously recorded moment-

 

some time ago in the grip of warm weather,

posing outside the entryway to our earliest house,

a snapshot was taken. my brother, three years the younger,

stands beside me alongside his new bicycle as I stand beside him alongside my own.

he'll maintain his bike meticulously as it arrived from the store downtown

where both bikes were purchased by our father at the same time of the same day.
I never knew what it was he bought for our sister, three years my elder, but
I'll bet it cost more than the price of two bicycles.

my brother rides it high in the saddle, handlebars positioned as corporately prescribed, its grips leveled toward the chest as drawn by the Schwinn engineers.

he wants the chain-guard bolted in place because the bike came to him that way,

reasoning that at the store downtown they must know what they’re doing.

I can't ride across the street to the corner with my bike in that condition.

so I drop the saddle.

the handlebars are loosened by the central bolt and turned downward,

the new horns of the Schwinn, altering the generally accepted configuration

in the on-going romance of young rebellion. 

the chain-guard, our young mother’s last-line of defense against grease

on the cuff is removed, but only when far from her line-of-sight.

these procedures mean nothing when applied to the physics of momentum, but

only because we can't ride the bikes fast enough to present a finding of proof.

but they separate the bike-riders of the corner across the street like myself,

from the younger kids consigned to the sidewalks like my brother.
as to the snapshot: it was taken by uncle Frank Toni,
on Sunday leave from his southend cobbler shop,

before any covert alterations took place, during the time

when everyone once loved now lost would live forever.
Quequechan