i ride down my street and wind threatens
to throw itself through me but i fight it
unlike autumn’s husked leaves,
which scutter under parked cars like scared cats.

perhaps i look like
the loneliest creature on the block, but i’m not.
i can feel how my wheels touch the street;
how thin yellow sunlight pricks
my cold cheeks: the way mum stuck
needles in pincushions.

pumping legs carry me down back roads
under a grey sky, same shade
as nine thanksgivings ago, when i played
in the school’s cold grainy sand, waiting
for mum to call me home.

i turn onto chapel st—rush hour.
i wonder what i look like to drivers
weaving past them; watch me
navigate tram tracks and parallel
parking cars; watch me be
what i once could only dream of,
my book bag a sheath for butterfly wings:
watch me, mum, watch me.