Heaven Has a Bike Shop, Too Kaitlyn Crow
Bikes don’t break down, they fall apart. We had a lot of bikes come to pieces – A lot of bikes living on their last legs, see, The whole town seemed to share one tire pump And one year someone lost it in their tool shed. You could hear the kids coming from a mile away; The tires suffocating, the rubber gasping for air. It was a slow trip to the convenience store on two flats, But not for Clarence Jones, this thin smart-mouth With leg muscles that could take him anywhere. It was as though his life depended on it, head of the pack, Eyes gleaming with determination and a grin on his face. You could see the image forming in the depths of his mind: The bike stripping away beneath his body as he took to the sky, Finding home in the clouds while I watched from the window. The clerk leaned to me and said that I would never believe this, But Mrs. Jones scheduled young Clarence for his first round of chemotherapy, And that when he was biking for the clouds, he was dreaming hard.
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