Go to the places we never go.
Bicycle shipped 3000 miles in pieces
to this rural place. Dad insists
on reassembling
front wheel so tight it won’t move.
I loosen it. Spin freely. Hot
asphalt and late July.
Early August and no rain.
Necessity of motion and nowhere
to go. The flattest streets
are also the poorest, in the
flood plain, the wide mouth
of the river in winter.
Fly by the American Behavioral
Health Systems building, blowing
stop signs on Washington
because there is no traffic. Top
floor someone in the window
on the ledge, body against frosted glass
where windows only open a fraction,
opaque. A body looks out,
I look up, wonder, and imagine
my brother’s conversations
at 4am when no one is listening,
Autism’s echoes in the dark, turn
the corner. On a different street,
2nd and William a bean-thin
girl runs, three houses down
the block faster than I can peddle.
Screen door slams, without
looking, she runs from
the house, back yard
filled with car parts, rusty
camper, broken bed, strange
resemblance to the disorder we left
on the other side of the mountains—
Turn the corner. Maybe
that other house has a yard,
maybe it has more space.
Small railroad houses
McFadden off 9th containing
the likeness of home, un-mown yard
broken shutters. I find a small
girl sitting alone at the side
of the road in gravel, no curb,
no sidewalk, Northwest streets.
She’s wearing buffalo plaid and no
parents in sight. Watches me
slide by, expression already
hard. She’s maybe all of four.
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
