First Bike
By Kay McKenzie Cooke
Best of all, it was blue,
the blue
of a blue-bottle
stain on sand.
It cost eight pounds
and Sam the pig
his life. But the glory
of its handlebars,
licorice-pedals,
chain guard, mud-guards,
its carrier, its bell,
the swift, quick work
it made of ground
formerly trudged
over. Nothing now
to pick up or
drop stuff off
like eggs from Mrs Barnett,
the terror
of her rapid, yapping foxy
worth it
for the reward
of the wind-whipping
downhill return
and the two malt biscuits.
Kay McKenzie Cooke's latest collection of poetry is Made for Weather (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2007).
