I cycled backwards

by the still river, past the burnt fields

through musty bedrooms with makeshift ashtrays

watching pigeons on the windowsill flying in reverse

they hatched, they laid, they arrived, and they are gone

as I came and left

I cycled backwards

gripping the handle

stones rooted in my palms

piercing lines and scarring my fate

now undecipherable, even

to the greatest of fortune tellers

I cycled backwards

getting on, getting up,

face against asphalt, blood on my hands,

weightless, in flight; frozen, in shock

my wheel bounces off a rut

the beach, the sand, they deceive

distracted by the jewelled afternoon sea

I cycled backwards

finding a figure in a white sheet

standing by the bridge

a ghost, with sleeves of sorrow

stained and marked with tears

waving goodbye

I am cycling backwards

desperately searching for a lost memory, for reason

finding endless, endless words, unspoken

coming and going from a broken frame

like the spokes of the wheels

hanging on to dirt-caked tyres

punctured, weary, like me

~