NaPoWriMo #19: Friends

Dashed off in my usual last minute rush...
this one also fits an earlier prompt, "road trip"

For more poems about friendship, visit Readwritepoem here

The Blonde Ambassador’s Daughter

Forty miles or so a day,
even on our basic bikes
was not a world shattering feat.
We left town on the old main road,
(no cycles on the motorway),
-me, Linda, and the blonde
ambassador’s daughter -
rode north around the coast
and over undulating hills.
The others had three speeds.
I had one. Had to get off and push,
while they waited for me to catch up.
At Paekakariki Maria’s chain broke.
We sat on the footpath and ate ice cream,
legs dusty from the road
wrists sticky where we licked up the drips.

We talked about matters too inconsequential
to remember. Maria thought New Zealand
was backward, because she couldn’t
buy dye for her eyebrows.
It was Sunday. All the shops were shut.
She called to a passing boy (ten years old or so)
“Do you have a spare bicycle chain?”
and miraculously he did.

Foxton on the second night
it’s biggest landmark the water tower.
The youth hostel by the deserted racecourse
and the sand dunes covered in lupins
down by the beach.
Hamburgers at the Big Tex
the height of sophistication.

Coming back, we battled a head wind.
Gave up at Paraparaumu
and put our bikes on the train.

Linda and I
exchange cards every Christmas.
She has three boys, I have three girls
and a couple of boys as well.
Maria went back to Europe.
Sometimes I wonder
what she is doing now
and what colour are her eyebrows.