I don't even know how that happened
only that I spent eleven days in the hospital
getting past congestive heart failure
and when they let me wheelchair out to the car
I didn't need coffee and haven't since then
no, that wasn't easy, that was eleven days
weaning me from coffee and the life
that went with it, a life I can barely remember
almost a year later, giving up riding my Harley
was dropping it a second time on my left leg
was shattering both bones in my lower leg
was giving up highways and roads
but keeping freeways and streets
dwellings and stores, warehouses and gas stations
but never again the swell of the ground
or the thrill of an ess leaned into just right
never the smell of wheat whipping my face
nor the icy sudden scent of wildflowers waking
into spring, nor the other icy sudden dodge
of a car driver's move without thought for me
ah, you bastards, I outskilled you half a million times
and even at the end, it was my own legs failing
my own reflexes slowing that told me to dismount
and make you climb a sidewalk to kill me
or crush me as one of your own, you didn't chase
me off my Harley, I gave it up and still miss it
and still know that was the choice that made sense
but oh, when I think of what I gave up
sometimes the choice seems so wrong
I almost want to undo it
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