Bicycle so Fast
Yanked out of a dream with a bicycle
so fast the bicycle remains standing
in the dream and the dream remains right
before my eyes. It’s proof,
worldly tethers do exist, proof of hands.
Here, my quilt-warm lover, my water
works of morning light land
heavy on my limbs and
I’d push away from them if I could
move, or breathe in only
the bicycle world, or only here. Just the one
world.
The split screen morning is
a painful fissure.
This light invades that dream
where the bicycle is perfectly still.
My hands make its shape under
the bed sheets, perfectly unbalanced
in both realities. Both
brokenly calling.
| Ariana Turiansky |
|
levelheaded: Bicycle so Fast
In the first line of Ariana Turiansky’s poem, the bicycle could be the instrument that has “yanked [the speaker] out of the dream.” Or the bicycle could just be another thing that, like the speaker, is pulled out of the dream by some other unknown force. The two possible interpretations of this line manifest the idea that the speaker is straddling two different worlds, one in which sudden movements can occur (“so fast”), and another in which those movements beget stagnation (“remains standing”).
Whether spontaneously realized or carefully practiced, Turiansky seems conscious of these dichotomies without beating us over the head with them. The first line of the second stanza ends with “water” and the line that follows ends with “land.” The phrase “morning light” in line seven turns “heavy” in line eight.
Though there seems to be some pleasure in being “perfectly unbalanced / in both realities,”—after all, riding a bike is fun!—“The split screen morning is / a painful fissure.” There’s “light” in the world, but it “invades” rather than shines or illuminates. The speaker longs to be fully present in one place, wanting “Just the one / world” at one time rather than being pulled and pushed by two worlds, “Both / brokenly calling.”
– The Editors
