Frank Dullaghan
Bicycle
I was sixteen
when I learned to ride the bike,
my girlfriend taking me out secretly
on quiet roads.
A sudden wealth of countryside was mine
and later, the business
of smuggling butter on the carrier.
My next-door neighbour built the bike
with a frame I recovered from the river,
wheels from a scrapyard.
But the saddle and tyres he bought
in payment for my labour -
two weeks building his garage.
One winter’s afternoon
a policeman tried to stop me,
standing stoutly, arm out,
at the bottom of the hill.
The wind and fourteen pounds
of yellow Irish butter at my back,
I almost didn’t miss him.
That was fright enough for me
to keep to my own side of the border.
My girlfriend was a different matter,
she’d found a boy with a Yamaha.
Black leathers, throbbing miles of speed,
there wasn’t a country could hold her.
Page(s) 33
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