Motorcycle Ride

The curve she didn’t curve around
straightens her life into rows
of cornfields she’ll zoom through
in dreams that turn
into months of coma,
into a cracked skull and lacerated eye
that still sees in that foggy mist of morning
the speed that frees us from everyday,
asphalt just another rule to follow,
all lines the same.

Even here,
in this new day’s dim light,
she’d fling her helmet to the horizon,
rev up and fly into forever,
if only she could move her
two eyelids, the thin limbs
silent at the hip. If
only the unending
jagged lines on this boxed-in
screen would straighten. Listen
closely to hear her
leaving.

Marjorie Maddox

Marjorie Maddox

Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation—the short story collection What She Was Saying