Andrew Pidoux: The Biker

Andrew Pidoux

Andrew Pidoux’s collection Year of the Lion was published last year by Salt. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1999 and Salt’s Crashaw Prize in 2009. His other credits include the anthologies First Pressings (Faber) and New Writing 10 (Picador) as well as magazines such as Acumen, Iota, Poetry Wales, Saltsburg Review and Stand. He has also published stories in two Doctor Who anthologies for Big Finish. He lives in Harlesden in west London.

The Biker

I ride through the city at night,
My girlfriend tucked behind me
Like a set of angel’s wings.
She bellows her sweet whispers.

We go so fast that half the police
No longer believe in us.
But the tower blocks lean down
And register us with their hollow eyes.

And the bridge opens its heart valves
And the car park yawns its stories,
And children wake to watch the trick
That streets have summoned from their sleeves.

Even our roar lags behind us
In the avenues and parks we pass,
Unable to quite catch up, like the shed skin
Of a beautiful skeleton.