Run

It's half-marathon week, so expect some run-talk. Meanwhile, there's this, written shortly after a long run.

I was wheezing, left
right. The buttons
called nothing. Fights
on billowy terrain,
light taut. The run
was overwrought,
an arrival ingrained,
the time for precision.

Your names were elisions,
and I was skidding. Laterally
speaking, I wasn’t budging
but through the fog below
I knew left right. Draining
out of me were vowels,
decisions, and deeds. Pace.
Write left in little trowels.

Tamer visions fleeing.
Linear on the grid, topheavy
dimensions. Logging
real hours to sealed rhythms.
Open closed, close to them.
Are the names really done?
Sunbeaten trod, muddy grass
waving follicles at our pass.

Redolent, gamin-toed trot
weathered well. Right. I left
without going anywhere.
Arrived through no threshold.
Thinking I had picked daisies
without ever touching a flower,
traipsing gaps in fear, beads
in shower. The finished end so near.

Covering distances vaster,
the apartness moving faster.
It was farther or further,
though I didn’t know. I knew
little, but I knew well
how the shell formed, and why
scorned, we are in flight. Left.
Right. Left. Right.