I know my grooves so well, mechanical flick back, or prop up. Whichever you prefer. I blend, hitched in metals of you while you parade before eyes as ringmaster and call forth assistance at whim. Sometimes I ground, facedown where I lick earth, brace up the weight of you, and you say [Just] eat and be thankful. Round mirrors, left and right, muse your beauty-- traction to feed covet eyes once... No! Two glances-- Your favorite! Handlebar fringe tickles wind like a flirt-- so close to arms' frame. Or basket of worthier catches with freshly caught dames. Least from worn tires, I catch rubber's debris and road's stale crumbs from yesterday. My links teethe for oil, but you won't be disturbed. You pedal on because you trust nuts and bolts hold tight. As I untwine from your chainring, your hollow, steel frame loses momentum and thuds out, "Betrayer!"
As a poetry assignment for one of my English graduate courses, we had to write a poem in iambic trimeter quatrains. Although the stanza/lines and syllable count adhere to the original form, I did not go back and check the iambic rhythm; for my own purposes, I stuck to the content of the poem rather than form. This draft is vastly different from the first as I had started out with something else entirely different and am so grateful that my professor pushed me to improve this piece. Photo by Emily Huismann on Unsplash