Issue Thirty-Eight - Summer 2021

Riding an Ebike at Seventy

By John Delaney

With pedal assist and a throttle,
the hills sit lower and shorter.
I ride farther and bolder than I ever did.
Through the workhouse of the world
I visually dance, and the air parts
as I pass, not as gauntlet but
honor guard in a Tour de France.

This is the thrill you once got
breezing downhill at nine or ten
on your trusted Schwinn, embracing
a freedom that wouldn’t last—
but now it does, or seems to,
as if all life’s pedaling uphill
has discharged to you. Hold fast.

Copright 2021 Delaney

John Delaney moved out to Port Townsend, WA, after retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University Library. Since that transition, he has published Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook, and Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments. This poem is the result of adopting a ten-year-old cat.

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