POETRY

Think of the second thing first

I saw a fat kid on a bike who had a nice smile

On a bike I saw a fat kid who had a nice smile

Who had a nice smile? The fat kid on a bike

Out on that bike: legs pumping, face flushed, delicious air running through passages cool into his lungs, and then through arteries and down to the cells, the mitochondria.

That smile of shy, unobserved delight, the glide like a P-51 through the neighborhood, going somewhere or nowhere

Sixteen and on a bike: a moment to be savored

What sort of asshole am I that I didn’t see the smile first? Am I often given gifts and my focus finds the subpar wrapping paper?

Perhaps if I keep working at it, and if I’m lucky In future I’ll see the poem first, before I have to write it