To My Red Rust-honey:

I missed you all those months
you hung in the dark of my parents shed
I wanted to tell you:
you are so much more than a forgotten frisbee or broken roller skates.


I want you to know that everybody compliments your saddle
with words like classic and gorgeous.
You've got me habitually tucking my laces in.
The day won't even start without a cuffed pant leg.


Yesterday I gave you hustle
and we whistled though all of the lights.
In south SoDo
when we whizzed over the pavement gaping
and the steel throated railroad tracks
I could hear your spokes buzzing and fuzzing and showing off their integrity.
Your mousy calls let me know when you need love
& where to apply the appropriate fluids,
I'll need to grease you soon.


I know the rain might get you down
but I am here for you
my lovely unnamed frame.
Your rust spots are just freckles
absorbed from the only kind of sun this gray battered city knows
I love you vermilion.
I love you when your churning parts fall through.
I love you even when my stupid hands can't fix everything.
I love you fenderless
and rain and ruble dusting my chin without apology.
When you spin grit into my mouth
you let me know that the street is still beneath me.


Perched precarious
I push your balanced propulsion down and down and down.
Your return motions tenfold like the hollow magic of moon gravity.
My calves are starting to resemble rockets
and that nook between my ass and hip
(you know the place)
it's aching in the shape of movements we make together


You've spun a history into my muscles
built up lactic acid releasing in tensioned patterns spinning
my body is a geography of all the slopes we've scaled and plummeted.


I push
you carry
I push
you carry.
together we will fly down to the thick of it.


I've been making time to love you every day this week
you dizzy me with spinning spinning spinning
I am wet with the journey of us,
my darling red rust-honey.


I dream of you asleep in the basement,
not laying down but tilted slightly
front wheel cocked,
sleeping on the sly
like a glittering red sentinel
your angled repose calls to me
dreams spinning up through the floorboards whispering "ride ride ride"