PAD Day 18: The Escaped Bicycle

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "We ______," and (2) "write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered." 

For some reason I though about Neruda's wonderful The Book of Questions, a collection of short (mostly two-line) poetic questions that often veer toward the metaphysical, and are, for the most part, difficult or impossible to answer. (There's a new edition coming out that is beautifully illustrated, like a children's book.) The prompt from NaPoWriMo says we shouldn't reveal the question that we are answering, but I will break that rule and share it here: "How did the abandoned bicycle/win its freedom?" This is written as a string of hay(na)ku, a short form I love and have used many times - I actually have a chapbook of them coming out soon. (Although the fourth and fifth stanzas may not read like direct answers to the question, they seemed to be a logical progression of the images I was trying to create here.)

We Find the Escaped Bicycle
 
It
chewed right
through the lock.
 
It
rolled away
from human hands.
 
It
wears rust
like a medal.
 
But
its tires
need air, reassurance.
 
And
its chain
droops with sorrow.