After an Old Town by Chuka Susan Chesney

Wild Turkey binge, 

lost in the shock absorber 

of my brain, I pedaled home  

from the Blind Donkey Bar,

astride my bike, 

waving goodbye

to my friends driving by 

in the nearest one-way

lane. Then I crashed into  

a trash can before spinning

overhead, 

landed with my temple

on the Green St. curb.

My portside ear no longer

heard, splayed

peanut bowled, I was 

tossed by handlebars

beside the debris of jacaranda leaves

where the bittersweet gutter

flowed beneath my jaw. 

I had a concussion, 

friends threw me 

in their car,

curled like an ear, I  

grimaced under stars  

on the scuffed leather seat

over stone deaf rocks

of sweet vermouth sleep.

Wind tunnel spokes

in a Pasadena sky

where my hearing 

was timpanied by

too much bar hopping. 

I woke in the morning,

texted my mom.

She came and carted me 

to Emergency

in the shotgun of her SUV,

my bicycle a pretzel,

granny knotted to a pole.

Chuka Susan Chesney is an artist and a poet. Her poems, art, and/or flash fiction have been published in Peacock Journal, Inklette, New England Review, Compose, Picaroon, and Lummox. Chesney’s paintings and collages have been in exhibitions and galleries across the United States.