CANDYLAND RUN, BICYCLE RACE

Sonoma Valley, Summer 1990

Ducky and I hop on our bikes,
Pedaling like we're in the Tour de France.
We have to get to the creek, the one
That is nearly dry.
The sky is bright as chrome,
My handlebars hot.
Grape gum.
Smell of dry grass.
Baked ground crunching under our wheels.
The trail looks like the sound of parched corn
Rustling. Sara Elizabeth Shea and Duk Sook
Josephine Kuhry-Haeuser are racing through
Maxwell Regional Park.
We hate riding like this,
It's so unfeminine.
Sonoma Valley, the Valley of the Moon.
Is it shaped like the moon,
Or does it hold the moon?
It is filled to its trendy brim
With vineyards and tourists.
We are nerds trying to be cool,
Knowing if we stuff our tied shirts enough,
We'll wake up with breasts and be
Hella bitchin like dem hos
Who drink forties n' rock da beat.
At the creek, the jealous eyes of friendship flash
As we compare candy: warheads, ring pops, pixie stix,
Gum cigarettes, lemon drops. Ducky inhales the powdered
Sugar smoke, and now knows all about sex.
Sarie looks on and feels too young, too goody-goody,
Too afraid to admit she really doesn't want to play this game.
In a few more months Duk Sook will discover actual sex,
Become a woman at twelve, and disappear in a flurry
Of coke & booze, leaving Sara to wonder for ten years
What the foosh happened.
Ducky, holding the false butt,
Stands with nervous assurance,
Commanding silence.
For now, the riverbed is safe,
We are grown-up, we are twenty-five,
We do not know we are strangers.
Las chicas juegan como las mujeres,
Hablando sobre los novios y los pechos y
Cuando van a "hacerlo." Puedes hacerlo?
Las chicas buenas nunca hacen las cosas sucias.
The sun warns us of the late hour,
The shadows and the trees accuse.
We pedal fast, trying to win a race
Whose rules we do not yet fully know.