For Mom, who wanted a poem about bike rides and autumn leaves
by Kimberly Gibson-Tran
In Texas leaves do not break into brilliance,
fall limp and pale in little sweeps of shoes.
But now in bluing twilight, fingers askance
in some unanswered asking, the mesquite hues
itself in dreams of fire. Riding the tandem
bike, you in front and me behind,
we have been forging through another random
vision: spoke by spoke, the hill unwinds.
How strangely, then, we cross the world together,
a hundred lines unspoken, spun instead
on the red frames of minds, somehow tethered
to a steady pulse, that beat, that crimson thread
that drives, freewheeling through me, yoked, as we are,
by blood, by fire, by riotous shades of star.
fall limp and pale in little sweeps of shoes.
But now in bluing twilight, fingers askance
in some unanswered asking, the mesquite hues
itself in dreams of fire. Riding the tandem
bike, you in front and me behind,
we have been forging through another random
vision: spoke by spoke, the hill unwinds.
How strangely, then, we cross the world together,
a hundred lines unspoken, spun instead
on the red frames of minds, somehow tethered
to a steady pulse, that beat, that crimson thread
that drives, freewheeling through me, yoked, as we are,
by blood, by fire, by riotous shades of star.
Kimberly Gibson-Tran studied linguistics and creative writing at Baylor University and the University of North Texas. She's written critically about poems with "Lines by Someone Else" and has a nonfiction essay in Passengers Journal about her childhood in Thailand. Her poem "Promised Land, a Cartography" was selected for The Common Language Project's 2024 collection. She currently works in test prep and college counseling and lives in Princeton, Texas with her husband and cats.