Dream of My Daughter and My Two Cousins

dream as poem / poem as dream

AI generated image of a dad on a bike

My daughter has called me
asking for help with her bike
which has a flat tire.

She's stranded with it 
somewhere that is reminiscent of
High Drive in Spokane.

I arrive and air up the tire for her.
She rides it about half a block,
as if to test it,

then parks it and gets in the car with me.
"What are you doing?" I say.
"Aren't you going to ride it home now?"

Cut to: the parking lot of Fred Meyer.
Now she and I are both on bikes,
circling around the mostly empty lot.

I pop a wheelie
and go into a wide arcing turn,
leaning back far enough

to brush the palm of my left hand
along the pavement.
It's a bit show-offy.

My daughter tries the same maneuver
and doesn't do too badly
but can't sustain it very long.

She has a look on her face that says:
"I'm just doing my own thing
and I don't care what Dad's doing."

Cut to: the entrance of Fred Meyer.
My daughter and I approach together
but either she doesn't go in 

or immediately veers off 
to some other part of the store
as I head for the warehouse-like space

of custom-cut carpeting
and lumber and such.
My two favorite troubled cousins

are there waiting for me.
We seem to be involved in some project,
remodeling a house to flip perhaps.

I point out to them how the optics
of the room create an illusion
of it being smaller at one end

than it actually is, which is surprisingly 
massive. We walk in that direction,
feeling the space expand.