3rd Place | “Wheels On Ivy Lane”

3rd Place
March/April 2012
“Wheels On Ivy Lane”
Chris Thacker
Pineville, Louisiana

Shotgun start on a Saturday,
No sunlight to waste.
We bridled our bikes just like stallions of steel,
A concrete horizon we chased.
Out to the edge of the universe,
Or maybe just the end of the street.
Couldn’t wait to explore right out the front door,
Then wake up again and repeat.
We bagged up the stars; we blackmailed the moon;
We called a bluff on the rain.
And never gave thought to the cargo we hauled
With those wheels on Ivy Lane.

It seemed unfair that youthful hearts
Would ever outgrow that street.
But we had a taste for the highway at night
And not enough gas to go free.
We sat in the front seat ‘til morning
On a driveway prison yard,
With the contraband glow of the radio
And the asphalt standing guard.
So we threw off our caps, threw off our gowns,
We threw off the last of our chains.
While our mamas bartered God and watched
For the wheels on Ivy Lane.

When we return as tourists,
As vaguely recalled memories,
Our lives from once upon some other time
Are just ghost stories told by the trees.
But we carry this dust in our lungs,
And bear scars that made us grow strong.
The road that we knew still testifies true
That we mattered, we lived, we belonged.
The future will find all that we left behind,
Little clues of a kingdom we made.
‘Cause we carved our names down in our own holy ground,
With those wheels on Ivy Lane.