Biker Bar


I learned to ride a motorcycle
in a bid to save my marriage
my Honda Shadow trailed behind
exhaust fumes from his Harley

late afternoons
we undulated down 
swerving country roads
through lilac scent that burst 
its fenced-in borders
June-lit summer evenings
on the way to biker bars

where women amalgamate tendon-thin 
on nicotine and high-heeled boots
and men without helmets
gather in gusts of raucous laughter

I never fit in
with my reflective safety vest
my husband always ditched me
when we rambled through the door

the vest was too big 
stiff and awkward
made me visible in the dark

-first published in Midwest Prairie Review



Our Own Iliad Told


In fragment and tatter
carried on motorcycles
to taverns settled into hills
of glacial debris

a Vietnam vet overlooks
my yellow reflective safety vest
to share a drink with me
his leather jacket
scraped thin at the seams

speaks of how he was Budweisered 
every morning he had a mission
a case from the refrigerator 
to help him climb into the cockpit

it was an equipment malfunction
that time the entire load dropped

he saw it from the thick air
like a buzzing in his head
or shimmer
his own company
on the ground

he turns over the tale
seldom told
lays it down
between our glasses of beer
I pick it up
his pale gaze
I try to hold