Saturday, November 26, 2011
Moon is glinting.
Her fuzzy power
lighting spokes
under cobwebs.
Several saddles
scattered across worktops
where the weary
man's worn hands
turn
metal
s l o w l y.
His fingertips
experts
but not in the
villagers' eyes.
“Old Man Sid
the Cycle -
Psycho more
like.
I heard he took
another one.”
“Young Betty's
been a-walkin' lately,
Sid's had her
ol' bike away.”
He works into the
night. Gnarled fingers
creaking like
the shed door in a
storm.
Arms speckled with
rust.
Breaths
shorter.
A rugged face
with crags
you could climb
up
shields the grim toy of
his smile;
aged and crackled
like the veneer
painted on the
table top.
He's happy in his
work.
At night he dreams
of a harbour
filled with
bicycles. Each child
pays ten pence
to throw one in.
A rusting
graveyard of spokes and tyres
the colour of the
river
he inhabits.
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