Slash on a Bicycle 

by Todd Kaneko and Amorak Huey

Late 1970s America / divorce is the state 
bird of California / boredom is the national pastime / 
no worse place to be a boy / no better / no 
rules / no reason to come home / I can get away 
with anything / this ache in my thighs and this grinding 
chain are the origin of pose / swagger / supernova 

Music’s first / only truth: stop moving and die 
spokes snap / metal warps / the frame 
cannot hold / I will always know the cost 
of beer and smokes / I will remember 
this switchfoot and tailwhip beneath me 

Look up: Heaven is made of flint and butane / 
quasar and whiskey-burn / the universe 
sparking from my fingers / not my mother’s 
house in Los Angeles / so much closer to Earth 
than Mars / so much farther from Mars 
than my father’s house / than all those 
skate parks / empty swimming pools 
full of all the speed I can summon 

The only world that counts still rumbles 
beneath my feet / one day the planet will 
disappear beneath my body / I hit the lip 

of the bowl / lift off / into a vast and smoggy sky