Alternative Titles By

I Lost my Gary Fisher (Gresham)

2011/10.24,
4:02PM PDT

I lost my Gary Fisher Bike at MHCC
I locked it up at 12:50 P.M.
and when I came back at
3:00 PM on Friday and I notice
that the bike and the lock was not there
It's a Blue and yellow Gary fisher bike

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While I did not write the above, I take it from Craigslist and submit it as poetry.

We see that the author, unnamed, has lost something dear. This reader knows that Gary Fisher refers to a bicycle, but do all readers know that? If a reader is unaware, it may be assumed that Gary Fisher is a man, which he is. This is a letter of loss, and for some readers, it is an eulogy alternatively "Gresham."

What does "Gresham" symbolize to the author? Does it allow for a place of rest for the deceased, or is it the scene of the trauma?

Notice the disjunction of the lines "and when I came back at /3:00 PM on Friday and I notice / that the bike and the lock was not there(.)" This could suggest the jaggedness which this trauma has caused in the author's day, or narrative. There is conspicuously no punctuation throughout this work, this could represent a malaise or feeling of confusion, being lost in the theft of this "Gary Fisher."

Finally, the work ends on such a banal note that the reader is left to question all of our fleeting responses to loss. What will we remember? Blue and yellow. Colors. It's strange how memory is so visual, and how it was cold to the touch, or smelled like bananas are not left behind. The author asks us to question what we will leave behind. Blue and yellow.