Untitled (Bicycle)

By Ann Lauterbach
And then got on my bicycle through the tunnel in the snow
roiling endeavor traversing     sloped city    caressed by wings
in search of delay
                                And the small increments troubling air
and the cool pale sky
                                        wilderness errand    cauldron of hope
                    lost in the fickle mirror on the windowsill    bird
                                         casting about for seed   body unencumbered
                                                    soul flight    a vocabulary of
                    simple delusion
                                   everything on hold but for the ditch.

Time worn through       mere fabric or scrim    girl on her bike uphill
        boy under the covers          the mouth of the dream open
            through snow                 a wilderness errand recalling
                the nameless door and the cold handlebars and the trek

upstream and the contagion of fear
                                                              body still on its journey
                        silent mud in the aftermath of rain.

And the perpetual alliance of love grown from seed
the far field’s       contagion inhaled across boundaries—

Virgil is on the floor. Euripides on the floor.
No one could direct me to the room even as I was wearing
thin blue plastic gloves out of which a bug
crawled and sat on my finger as if it were a rock.
Like a god, I crushed it.

Notes:

This piece is part of the portfolio “How It Continues to Astonish: The Poetry of Ann Lauterbach.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the March 2023 issue. All poems are from Door by Ann Lauterbach, published by Penguin, and printed here with the permission of the author.

Source: Poetry (March 2023)