Biking Around, September 1st

With half a flat tire I go clanging
over curbs and tram tracks, glancing
back at the traffic for the swagger of it.
I waver and cut, drag my foot to stop,
dangle my arm with a drink and relax.
I don't do tricks. I just lean back on my bike.
I'm scanning for spots to sit or sneak,
maybe smoke a cigarette or drink or read.
I want a place that's a place I can show
to someone. I want a few. The first park
I try has old Asian men playing chess
and sacks of young mothers and skids
on a bench, a pale wading pool and one girl
at the edge, kicking sand. I bike round it.
In the back there's a cemetery fenced in
with barbed wire, long and thin. Two women
in bright-colored pants walk beside it.
One asks for a smoke. I say no. So down
past the bridge and up by the high school
and up past the clutter of houses and past
the white face of a women near dead
on her lawn with her grand-daughter
sitting beside her and up farther I roam
till I find a dog park by the train-fixing
station. There's a green wall on a hill
and pine trees in a row, planted beside it.
Between the trees and the wall is a spot.
For sure it's a spot, it's there and I found it.