by Michael Brady
At night on longish sweeps of coastal road,
as fog and dampness coat the graveled path
and ocean winds caress the broken shore
with summer mists that wash the evening clean.
The engine roar ablates an icy steam
as man and bike now drift to catch an edge;
the drop-off deep, its concrete railings worn,
the centerline now vague and mostly gone.
The engine redlines, clutching up a gear,
as silence screams beneath a rubber smell.
The black Madonna two-wheeled gypsy whore
on meaty beast of iron polished bright,
soft helmet flapping loose against the wind
as haunches flex to seat him for the slide.
His fears a focused symmetry of time
as seconds tick in hours yet to run.
With speed, the secret gift the gods allow--
it bites in chattered twisting as it pulls,
and hops, and jerks, and burns the ground in touch . . .
then digs-- its soul a solid angered thrust.
It snaps upright and scatters broken rock
and leaves the touch of edges razor cut.
He rolls his chair in stagnant kitchen heat.
The wordy bastard lifts a loaded gun,
and turns the engine's key to stop, and steps,
and makes the slide to edges lonely death.
The edge, a force we walk along in life,
inspired torch that burns an honest truth . . .
A way to fight the coming of our end,
The way we carve our names among the dead.
Michael Brady is a 50 year old Journalism Major at San Jose State University--a senior.
