Balanced at the gravel margin
of the road, veiled in grey and blue,
his hands are fisted loose around
the bicycle’s white handlebars
in equipoise below his beard’s
feathered fringe. His threadbare jeans
ride up and down at the knees
with the turning of the pedals,
effortless as air. He shows the world
a look of grave surprise, it seems to me -
presents it to a land that never was his own,
but one that he is only passing through.
Roadside cottonwoods and maples
shield him from the skimming sun,
and overhead a skein of Canadian geese
call and call.