Poem: Bike Ride with Older Boys

Bike Ride with Older Boys
Laura Kasischke

The one I didn't go on.
I was thirteen,
and they were older.
I'd met them at the public pool. I must

have given them my number. I'm sure

I'd given them my number,
knowing the girl I was. . .

It was summer. My afternoons
were made of time and vinyl.
My mother worked,
but I had a bike. They wanted

to go for a ride.
Just me and them. I said
okay fine, I'd
meet them at the Stop-n-Goat
four o'clock.
And then I didn't show.

I have been given a little gift
—something sweet and
inexpensive, something
I never worked or asked or said
thank you for, most
days not aware
of what I have been given, or what I missed—

because it's that, too, isn't it?
I never saw those boys again.
I'm not as dumb
as they think I am
but neither am I wise. Perhaps

it is the best
afternoon of my life. Two
cute and older boys
pedaling beside me—respectful, awed. When we

turn down my street, the other girls see me ...

Everything as I imagined it would be.

Or, I am in a vacant field. When I
stand up again, there are bits of glass and gravel
ground into my knees.
I will never love myself again.

Who knew then
that someday I would be

thirty-seven, wiping
crumbs off the kitchen table with a sponge, remembering
them, thinking of this—

those boys still waiting
outside the Stop-n-Go, smoking
cigarettes, growing older.


I chose this poem because the title really grabbed my attention because that was something I used to do. My friends were always older then I was (just by a few months) but they would want to go for bike rides and stuff. Although we did not do the whole smoking part it still is something I will never forget. I have the scars on my knees from falling off and being "one of the boys" and seeing other girls in my neighborhood and just thinking how "cool" i thought i was. Now that I am older i still remember all of the things we did as kids.