-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 would live forever.


Quequechan