Doug Roy, Mountain Bikers, Cut Paper
Between rains
my boy of ten and I ride home
mud-spattered on slick asphalt,
puddles clinging to low places,
leaves plastered flat to damp streets,
blue wedges splitting open the gray ceiling,
brittle light pours through.
We pedal West toward the sun
over the sand cast sewer covers
whose radial designs in low relief hold cold water
like stained glass and lead caning
where other white hot suns flare up
right under our wheels.
Racing home, squinting,
our tire treads fling out sheets of thin mist
his chasing him, mine chasing me,
both vanishing fast as they’re made.
__________
Jessie Reid
Review by Philip Kirsch
Here, the descriptors of the opening stanza set the scene: “mud-spattered,” “slick,” “low,” “plastered,” damp”; we get a detailed picture even before the wonderful portrayal of “blue wedges” in the sky letting through those “brittle” pillars of light running down.
As this bike ride continues the poet shows us there is more to see if we look — designs and reflections even in sewer covers decorated by the rain.
The ride continues home in the final stanza, where again a precise picture is drawn, of “sheets of thin mist…chasing” their bikes, “vanishing fast as they’re made,” fast as the weather changes, fast as the boy grows up who he rides with.
I like especially that the poem strives to record every detail, and then lets those details speak for themselves.