Covet

Instructions for My Sons

15 Instructions for my sons: quit leaving your bikes out at the neighbor’s house and also propped against the garage door, scattered in the driveway, the hard frames screwed into a tangle of spoke and angle; leaned against the convenience store, abandoned in the school parking lot, always unchained, unlocked, unmonitored while you proceed with other things. Is it that you don’t care what might become of them, that you don’t think of their cost, the effort you took to prime and upgrade the brakes, the rims, the gears, the shocks? Or is it that you can’t imagine loss, any landscape absent what you love and need? This world steals. Its bruising, indiscriminate want robs the soft places, and wounds. And you— left with rough sutures, scars, place that aches in the rain—you learn to live with what you can’t ever get back, heart like a broken pedal, spinning wheel against the sky. ...