
The Stolen Motorcycle of My Subconscious
The night my son was born I had a dream
and in that dream I stole a motorcycle, it
was black and the chassis was made of
painted bones. I took it from in front of a
donut shop. I rode it to the country with a fear
of getting caught in my belly. It was hard to
control my speed and the bike would lurch
and try to get out from under me. It was cloudy
in my dream and wind in my ears sounded
like a kettle screeching on a wood stove. My
son is twenty now and I still own that stolen
motorcycle of bones, I still ride it over dream
hills and through dream forests, still in fear of
being found out. Every once in a while, I try to
abandon it somewhere— to let it be found and
returned to its owner. But then I will have another
dream and in that dream I will ride again on that
stolen motorcycle of my brain through the woods,
scared, but starting to get the hang of it as I hurtle
toward a place that seemed so far away at first, but
gets closer every night I go to sleep.

James Hawes is a poet and filmmaker living in Montreal. He has published three chapbooks, the latest under an overpass, a fox (Turret House Press), was shortlisted for the Nelson Ball Prize in 2023. His first full-length collection Breakfast With a Heron (Mansfield, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 ReLit Award. He is the founder and publisher of Turret House Press, a micro-press dedicated to publishing new and experimental poetry from emerging and established authors (turrethousepress.ca).