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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.



the open road where the protagonist of this poem rides the motorcycle in his dream


 


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).


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