Shoulder

on a shoulder between lines of fences
with horses running wild on my right
and rush hour semi-truck traffic on my left,
i pedal my way back.

it is an easy 13.6
from one downtown to another,
the wind at my back
and hills too small to notice.

i pass a castle carved from European idealism,
a racetrack with entry gates for betting,
an airport with two-propeller planes,
and more churches than i could ever count.

i leave behind the carved wood paneling
and molded tin squares of red ceiling,
the perfect Reuben sandwich settling into me
as i recall the girls’ museum thrills.

my lungs don’t tighten up like home,
and superficial sprinkling on this springlike day
isn’t enough to slow down the fastest speed
i can remember putting on my eight-month-old.

i take the long way back along Versailles’
minuscule two-mile bike path, and day two
of not a soul utilizing the town’s only attempt
at ridding us all of the obesity that consumes us.

they await my arrival in the cul-de-sac (not home)
spinning on their own small sets of tires,
and i slip off my music, place my baby on its rack,
and wait for the time when i can meet the road again.

Uninvited Guest

she says directly what i can’t communicate
the secret sits between us at the table
an uninvited guest
that we have left 1100 miles behind

he asks me if i’ll share the truth
behind the underhanded comment
that has surreptitiously slipped.
i tell him no

i can’t take the judgment now
that will pass across their lips
as easily as the everyday commentary
of weather reports–things we don’t understand

i wonder if the words will come out
after too many grocery store beers.
i think of my miles under the cloudy sky
(the only one on my bike on a cool Kentucky day)

i think not. he and i share the bed
that they gave up, and her daughter prefers my daughter
in five seconds over me. i have tucked away the
license, it may as well be in the recycle bin.

i want to tell her, i tell him,
but that will make her angrier.
it is what it is, the uninvited guest that holds court
over the rabbit stew and barbecued pheasant.

if i could swallow it (mix it with rice)
and pedal beyond the horse barn
that costs more than my house,
would she forgive me for bringing it here?

Colors of the Night

i forget (as we sit here,
our hamstrings on the boat’s spine)
the colors of the day

was the sky as blue as the jays
darting in and out of trees?
were the forests a mixture of
pine and deciduous greens?

your mouth reaches mine
like the palm of a blind man
cupping my lead home

all i can see now (day washed away)
are contrasting colors of night
silver, black, gray, and white
as sharp as noon in my sight

you press against me (i reach out)
clasping the colors in my hand
your movements trapping them in memory

black unblurrable jagged mountaintops
over silver unpretentious waves of lake
sky’s gray bosom bursting with rainclouds
beneath the full serving of white moon

i forget (breaths heavy with dew)
the colors of the day, see only
carved out images in colors of the night

Breeze of Love

single women in spaghetti straps
men in khakis, collars and ties
linger in line for $3 microbrews
as we soak up the sounds of summer

girls giggle and groove at the front
forgetting for once they’re so small
beer bubbles in belly, beckons a smile
carrying kids through crowds into crescents

the ride home through Victorian
Colonial Craftsman Contemporary
bike lanes on every side street
brings a breeze of love through Lexington
lovely to love, to live, to meet.

Bullfrogs

they have never seen
or collected one by one
bullfrogs hopping into the water
quicker than a wind shift

we pace like predators
around the pond
tiny whispered voices containing
excitement over bulging eyes

there are no mountains here
only hills so dense with trees
you’d never see the rocky bottoms
when we’re so used to rocky tops

instead horses swing reluctant tails
in air as thick and slow as syrup
and we watch a turtle slither on a log
and frog after frog hop into our hearts.

My Sunset

Kentucky heat on a
new side of the state
(one that doesn’t give in
to early sunsets)
guides us up and down
hills on a windless evening

i grin,
back on the bike
after a week,
two whirlwind drives
six states over from
the mountains
as lush vines
thick-as-elephant tree trunks
and curvacious
nonchalant
southern hills carry us home

we stop
just shy of their house,
a perfect park
(playground and all)
distant trees
gripping the edges
of a burning red circle
that strikes
my sixteen-year-old heart
still beating lovingly
all these years later
that same sun
hidden by wisps of clouds
a bright mark of beauty
on the tired world
over the spires and forests
of Oxford
now reappears,
and i have no stairs to sit on,
no lonely walk home,
no desperate inquiries
in a dorm hallway
about what was missed,
but instead
my hands on my handlebars,
him standing beside me,
my sunset shared at last.

Circle of Light

if i could capture that circle of light
i would
a golden shadow-ridden ray of sun
that draws in the twilight

i see Lucy in its glow
(Kentucky calling me home)
with the girls (my girls)
who refuse to go to bed

i should call her
(my sister, my niece)
but how the days suck
me into their time warp
how my mind is on
teaching and teaching
loving and loving
and i forget
i forget
just how many times
i held that baby
and cried when
we parted

if i could capture that circle of light
i would
tuck it into my chest
and forget forget forget
all that is dark
and remember remember remember
this circle of light
that i hold within my palms.

When Reality Returns

my legs ache from want
of the bike paths, of women on bikes,
mosquitoes and fleas now eat me alive
and i miss my mountain peaks
but
i feel i will miss this more
the gurgling babyhood smiles
the hickory-oak-taller-than-buildings forests
the relentless rivers and rains
the stick-to-the-skin heat
and everything i should hate
that i have head over heels
fallen in love with
but mostly
our family, our (second) home,
knowing the hollowness that will
sit between the hours of my days
when reality returns
and i will have to live without.

It Isn’t Enough

it isn’t enough to be ten feet from
the door of our tent to the shore of the lake,
to paddle out into the cove side by side
for a miniature version of a date

it isn’t enough to swim with three girls
in ring-around-the-rosy circles into the night,
the campfire’s afterglow and the Milky Way
lighting their way into the warmth of their beds.

it isn’t enough to stay for one summer
because it could never capture our midnight swim,
our skinny-dipped rekindling after a week’s absence,
the fact that we haven’t lived,
we have never lived,
until the deep-down,
sparkling starlit beauty
of this moment in Kentucky.

Just What I Didn’t Expect

just when I’m about to turn
on a ride that’s a bit too long
(the sun is mocking me),
I catch a glimpse of a black shadow
in my newly-purchased rearview mirror.

at an easy lope, he follows me like a horse,
black and white fur as thick as
wool on a sheep’s back, tongue
dangling out the side of his mouth
with a wanton lust for liquid.

I pedal faster, but have never seen
a dog keep my 15 mph pace, and
the adrenaline seeps out with my sweat.
But I can’t just ride into the night,
so I slam on the brakes at the crest of a hill.

In a moment, he bounds over the top,
blue eyes as beautiful as the baby’s, he’s
a Husky in Kentucky, poor thing. I call to
him like he’s mine and he obediently
sits beside the bike for a master-pet rub.

I gulp down my Gatorade, make my turn,
and he follows me for a good long mile,
just as a sled dog should, just what I didn’t
expect, reminding me once again that this place
(I should hate) is just what I didn’t expect.