Spinning Wheels

It was just an ordinary
roadside yard sale—
a set of metal chairs with
ivory paint worn thin,
a backyard smoker rigged up
from various grill parts, yours
for only five dollars—

and a fuchsia pink bicycle,
which seemed nearly unused.
This is in perfect shape;
why would you get rid of this,
we asked the older farmer
while his wife sat in a rocker
on the broad front porch
overlooking their crop fields.
The farmer quietly explained
that they had only one child,
a daughter, and that she had died.

We paid for the yard chairs,
the makeshift smoker, and the bike
and brought them home.
Truth be told, I wanted nothing
to do with that bicycle; it felt
like a ghost, and though
we had no children of our own,
somehow it carried the energy
of an omen.

It was not long before
the farmer’s home and fields
sold to a developer, and we
had begun to raise a family
of our own— four little girls.
As they grew, one by one,
they learned to ride bicycles,
turning little circles in the
country road as I kept
a watchful eye. My husband,
meaning to be encouraging,
pulled the pink bicycle out
of the stable one afternoon
and parked it on the driveway;
I might wish to join the children,
he suggested.

Untouched, the bike has
remained just where he left it
years before, through rains and
snow, hail and sleet, sun and wind.
It has played silent witness
to all manner of family seasons.
The tires are flat, the seat cushion
and handlebar pads have
been taken by animals.
I felt superstitious about it,
much like Sleeping Beauty’s parents,
who forbade spinning wheels
throughout the kingdom
in a vain attempt to outpace
a curse.

In the end, it did not matter.
They say cycles repeat themselves
in an inescapable endless loop,
and patterns can always be found
within patterns. My eldest daughter
died in her youth, just like
the farmer’s daughter.

Would that my weighted heart
could sleep for a hundred years
and wake to find the spell broken—
my daughter riding triumphantly
along the very road I feared,
having conquered the curse
of the fuchsia pink bicycle.

C. Juno, © 2026