They tell me any idiot can do it and I tell them

I’m not just any idiot, I am specific. Even when my lungs

are bursting – properly bursting

like things dragged up by that Russian deep-sea fisherman

I keep riding.               I get tired.                    I just keep riding!

People who drive talk about how great it is

to get out of the city. They drive to new cities

so they can get out of those cities.

Cities coagulate around drivers to try to stem the wound,

stop them leaving. I could become a valued member

of the resistance. I could drive aggressively at the city

to make it move down, like a conductor yelling into a packed carriage.

I ride along the street outside your house

with my heart flapping loose and getting chain grease on it.

I’d just like to be able to pick you up from the airport

or drive a medium-sized dog around.

I’d like to buy some small trees and drive them home

in companionable fragrance.

What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people

and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing

asked Kerouac. That’s your conscience

telling you that you’re yet another problematic single-driver

automobile on the road

and you should turn around and let those people carpool with you.

Jack, let me attach a bike rack to your boot.

Fears coagulate around me to try to stop me driving.

A man flicks on his windscreen wipers at their most aggressive speed

to deter the squeegee bandits at the intersection.

I keep riding.               I’m tired.                     I have to find

a good pole to lock this to.

Years coagulate around me to try to stop me leaving.

The world flicks on its high-speed windscreen wipers to deter me.

The only good ride was when you were on your bike too,

coming downhill

and we passed each other

and yelled ‘Hey!’ at the exact same time.

When I walk I imagine throwing myself in front of buses

to punish them for being late. When I ride I brace myself

for drivers to barge right into the shoulder

and plaster me into the leaves like a chip packet.

Why don’t I just cycle directly into my coffin and be buried

with my learner licence, which expired in 2011?

I yell that. I see drivers expand and shrivel and expand

like octopuses in motion and I envy them

being able to shapeshift deep inside their personal oceans.

I’d like to be able to pick you up from your new place

or take you there sometimes.

You can always make your own way from the airport

but I’d like to transport some small trees, a marrow, a table.

I’d like to have a table to stand on, to stretch up into a tree.

The small trees will grow into trees that overhang public footpaths

and slap my head good-humouredly as I ride under them.

A dog will hang its head out your window as you go by

its slow mouth saying something important to me in a dream, but I

won’t remember.

It will be great to get out of the city.

Get to another city, pull ourselves free, get out of that city

and the city is watching us go, shaking its fist; but we’re just specks dispersing.