Seven miles it took
until I wasn’t thinking about you
for a moment, until I shook
with something other than tears
and stared with something other
than apathy.
Love and hate, respectively.
They cycle as they spin, like
the light and the shadow through
the spokes of my tires.
My feet are getting smaller,
or the pedals bigger–either way,
they don't fit.

I miss you, but I don’t
wish you were here.
I can only breathe
in the shadows of trees,
but I know how you idolize the sea.
What can I say?
I run for my heart,
it hurts my knees.

I know you like your water in
ebbs and flows,
ebbs and flows,
sea lions basking in the rhythm
of the shallows.
But what about the gorges?
The rivers, the rush
that always moves forward,
hawks soaring with their eyes
on the prize, and the prize
is dappled in light
through the leaves,
and the leaves crunch
like words that have become orders,
and the orders soften as the snow falls,
and the snow melts as the birds call,
and the birds sing as the seasons complete the ring
I had in my shopping cart for months but never
ordered?

What about that?

Seven miles in, none of it
has gone away.
All the ice has melted
into the lake and there are still no waves
because the wind is blowing, flowing,
spilling away from the shore.
A gale to bring water to the eyes,
to sweep gulls of course
but with the waves
heading away from the shore
the surface looks smooth.
Imagine that.
I’m getting over you.