On the old bicycle the plumber brought me
Saint Christopher gleams by the traffic bell.
“Good as new.” He tapped a rusty fender.
“The girl who rode it moved to Florida.
She was some kind of teacher, too,” he grinned.
No baskets, saddlebags, license, or lights.
Eight novels crammed into my backpack—
excessive as a life vest stuffed with stones—
I pedal two miles to the travel agent
to pay for my son’s airline ticket home.
Twenty years ago I jogged to market
bearing the light burden of him, bobbing
against my back. Singing to rooks and jays,
he dipped his head under the sky’s wing.
He was lighter than my dictionary.
On the threshold, when I set him down,
my muscles quivered, light flooded my bones.
I was a still lake holding up the sky.
Now in his empty room, I hang the map
that flopped out of the National Geographic.
Start with what you know, I tell my students.
Detroit, New York, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek—
the roads that spider off from towns I know
are red as arteries that serve the heart
and bring fresh news to all its distant cities,
Madison, Minneapolis–St. Paul.
At his first solo flight away from home
wearing the new jeans he’d bought for school,
his father gave him a gold medal. “Given
for good conduct all the years we had you,
and for good luck.” A talisman, a blessing,
friendly as butter: Christopher, untarnished,
bearing the magic child across the stream.