A Story From My Father, Age 16, As Told While Sitting in the Hot Tub and Drinking Coffee
by Caleigh A. Camara
Have you heard about the time
My teenage friends and I
Were fucking around on
My friend’s motorcycle?
On the back country roads
Where all that surrounded us
Was orchards and cows
And our parents were at
Home, and to them, who
Knows where we were,
When we revved up that
Motorcycle, breaks clenched,
Wheels churning, rubber burning
Against the fractured asphalt,
And I hopped on the back tire’s
Wheel guard—only the motorcycle
Squealed up on one wheel, and I fell
Back, clutching Dave’s shirt
As that thing blasted forward,
40 feet through the dirt.
That tire gnarled up my chest
Like a chicken’s breast, that’s
For sure. And you’re staring
At me in horror, but I’m alive,
Aren’t I?