Written by Naomi Shihab Nye
She lives in San Antonio, Texas, USA
Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions
from Fuel: poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, 1998.
The Rider
A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
Posted with consent of the writer.