Nights are still damn hot.
Afternoons, every biker I pass
I’m thinking is you,
changed your mind,
trying to make peace,
maybe thinking about
winter camp.
This corresponds,
no doubt, with the dreams
that keep coming
just before sunrise.
Your half-gloved hands
hanging the road bike
on the garage wall again,
the dust beneath your
fingernails, the gentle
stink of your sweat,
soaked permenantly
into those gloves.
Your mountain bike
is gathering dust,
and I run my fingers
along the thick nubs,
wishing, sometimes,
that your road bike
had tires so thick as this–
knowing, with a particular
bad taste in my mouth,
that they’ll be fine.
Nights are still warm enough
that I sit out on the rocks at
Lost Mountain Overlook from
evening to midnight
counting the stars that make
the great snake-handler in the sky.
