Broken Pedals

It’s blueberry pie that I made
and tossed off the balcony
hot into the dumpster.

It’s ice cream
passed between scoops,
never a bowl home.
Bloody annoying

curves in the road. It’s a wreck,
a bicyclist she ran into a wall,
flat on the sidewalk,
legs curled against her chest.

It’s the fetal position,
we all came out crying.

Ambulance firetrucks
gawkers. I saw them
wheel out a gurney.
It’s a black steel frame,

white cushions. It’s the
cushions that held her.

I rode my bike right by
thinking about a dandelion
puff that I blew when I
was six. I made a wish.

My pedals kept me going.
For just a moment,
I thought about dying
women everywhere.

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Uprooting

Carp experts say
all goldfish are actually invasive
carp that have traveled

from afar to become people’s pets.
When dumped into ponds,
they grow, unlimited

by a fishbowl.
Native plants simply cannot establish
roots in those ponds.

Someone
caught a four-pound goldfish
of which I saw a photo:
an orange-scaled football

carefully cradled
by a local fisherman.

A carp that simply
could not establish
roots as a pet.

A scientist looked
at its inner ear bone
under a microscope

to count its growth rings.
Has it reached its
potential?

Did it know
it was discarded?

I for one don’t feel
sorry for that pond’s fate.

Source: Football-size Goldfish Found in a Minnesota Lake

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Elyse Jancosko was born and raised in a small town hidden in the Appalachians. She studies theopoetics and conducts poetry therapy and expressive writing groups in Denver where she lives and works.