Marisa P. Clark

Motorcycle Safety      

Riding home from your house
some late nights, I’d catch
the red light where Spain                                           

intersects Eubank, and I’d wait,                             
my motorcycle too lightweight
to trip the sensor that lit

the arrow green. In helmet,
padded leather jacket, boots,
and gloves, I was suited up

for safety, red Ninja throbbing
at my crotch. My left blinker
flashed my intention

uselessly, and no car pulled behind
to lend its heft. How much time
I wasted idling—I didn’t dare

to break the law. What if I’d
turned the bike around—
what then? If only I’d opened

the throttle wide and sped back
across town, to you, my Ninja
purring in the cool dark night.

Marisa P. Clark is the author of the poetry collection BIRD (Unicorn P, 2024). Her prose and poetry appear in Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Epiphany, Foglifter, Prairie Fire, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. Best American Essays 2011 recognized her creative nonfiction among its Notable Essays. A queer writer, she grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, came out in Atlanta, Georgia, and lives in New Mexico with two parrots, a standard poodle, and whatever wildlife and strays chance to visit.