ROUND AND ROUND
by Jack Hickman
From the windows at the back of the house
I see every now and then
An adolescent girl
Riding her bicycle round and
Round through the early winter dusk
Repeating a narrow circuit behind the cars
In the parking lot
Of the condos next door.
I worry about her all alone
With nothing to do but ride and ride,
Filling the time between homework
And going in for dinner.
I have never met her on the sidewalk,
Never seen her face.
I don’t know who her parents are
Or which unit is her home.
She is just there some evenings
Going round and round,
As if she were a metaphor
And my life a Bergman film.
_____________________________________________________
Jack Hickman was born and raised in Alameda, California.
He is a graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
and after many years of working in retail, Hickman is now a
teacher with the Oakland Unified School District. His poetry
has appeared in Perspectives Journal, Redheaded Stepchild,
and Avocet.
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 13, Number 2
(Fall 2018)
Copyright © 2018
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
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