The Wake

The last time I rode a bicycle before today, I remember,
this was a summer ago, as I remember it,
a summer ago as I remember, I rode a bicycle through photographs
in the Northrop Mall, as I remember it,
riding through photographs on Northrop Mall
posing motion for brochure catalogues, as I remember it,
while I ride, as I remember the contrasts
of the overcast today to the picaresque under the Boynton Clock Tower
to the skin grafts beside the Stone Arch
and the mad dash to the Alumni Center
for fake graduation gowns
for that final cap to the ad; this photograph,
today, as I remember it,
as I remember the helicopter skim above,
as I remember it, stalled on Hennepin over
What do we want? “Peace!”
When do we want it?
“Now!” as I remember it,

the snap of the drum beat,
it was now,
that not my voice was taken, not then, not my voice, not our voice
that was taken, as I remember it
on my bicycle, as I remember the exit
from Loring Park, as I remember it,
we left Loring Park through a split curtain of trees,
as I remember it, passing a pedestrian, as I remember it,
behind my friend, as I remember that
even she, the pedestrian, picked up her camera then,
as he passed and, as I remember
just passing, the aperture snap,
as I remember it, just the miniscule snap
of her aperture, as I remember it,
just a brief
snap.