The Bicycle's Vigil

A bicycle leans against weathered fence, its bell untouched for seasons, gathering dust like worn devotion.

The spokes catch afternoon light— gold thread through rust, and somewhere a child has grown tall without knowing how to ride.

Petals drop from the gutter's mouth, blooms no one planted here, wind's generous mistake, softening the frame's sharp edges.

The chain coils like a sleeping snake, waiting for friction, for motion, for a hand it will never know again— while the earth keeps turning, and forgetting becomes its own kind of freedom.