Bike the Strike Poem

From our email files:

Hi,

I am a long time NYC biker and a Transportation Alternative advocate.
I am also a professional poet and performer.
Below is a poem I want to share with you.
I use biking down Broadway as a metaphor for persistence.
Enjoy!

Best,
Corie

PS - I am biking the strike and loving it!

Persistence

By Corie Feiner


She persists like a woman biking down Broadway.
She has forgotten her lights and knows that when
the sun goes down she will have to make
rapid noises with her tongue so that the taxi cabs
and suburban vans do not open their door into her lungs.

She wears boots instead of sneakers
and tucks her work pants inside their leather rim,
she wears a heavy bag that presses sharply into
her lower back with each bump and crater,
she stands when she rides over pot holes and turns quickly
around police blockades and construction zones.

The bike lane whose white lines are fading
as if they were drawn in sand suddenly stops
at 45th Street, as if all bikes should evaporate like
the steam from the Ramen Noodle soup ad hovering
over Times Square.

She turns into traffic as if the cabs could not hurt her,
could not suddenly turn left and crush her peddling legs,
could not pull her into their hot grid, she breathes in
and pushes out her belly, she breathes out and tightens her skin,
she breathes in thick exhaust, engine fumes, impatient honks,
she breathes out movement, muscles, and gears.

She will get to where she is going,
and it will be her own strength that got her there.



Corie Feiner
Poet, Performer, Educator