Critical Mass
Lifted their bikes up-
side down above
their thousand
heads and
cheered
locked the grid
blocked the inter-
section shut
the whole East
Village down
cars jammed
against that
stopped moment
that break in
time's flow
nothing moving
nowhere
to go unless
inward until
the helicopter's
searchlight shook
the air and cops
billyclubbed
a couple kids
to set example
hauled off
a truckload of
others forced
apart the forces
that swirled
together there—
but what I still see
are the wheels
held upward
spoked with light
freed from
the pavement
spinning into sky.
John Brehm
Help Is On the Way
University of Wisconsin Press
Copyright © 2012
by The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission