Motorbike Fear
by Meg Freer
A bad influence on us, our mother
thought—hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, motorcycle-riding Uncle Francis, with
that wild look in his eyes—and she was adamant he could not take us girls for a
ride on his bike. Oh, how we were terrified at the thought of whizzing up and
down the hilly streets of The Dalles and along the Columbia Gorge where we
might tumble off into the raging river like the suitcases sliced off the roof
of the car one summer by the serrated muscle of wind that blows down the
gorge—the rocky shore flowered with our mother’s silky underwear and the river
strewn with shirts and socks—and if our mother cried about broken suitcases,
how much more she would grieve for our broken bodies if we fell off that bike.
* * * * *
"Motorbike Fear" was previously published in into discourse (a discursive
literary arts project), July 10, 2020.
Meg
Freer grew up in Montana and lives in Ontario, where she is a mother, writer
and piano teacher. Writing poetry helps her draw unexpected meaning from the
beauty and strangeness of both humans and the natural world. She has
co-authored a chapbook, Serve the Sorrowing World with Joy (Woodpecker
Lane Press, 2020) and published two additional chapbooks. Her photos, poetry
and prose have been published in journals such as Burningword Literary
Journal, Sunlight Press, Eastern Iowa Review, and Sequestrum.
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