Chapel

And I ride, beginning to tire, the sunset blasting my smeared shadow a thousand feet across fields and valleys and trees and streams

alone

the bike running smooth as a mercury bead, the roaring vibration melding flesh to metal and leather, rolling harmonic tides through my feet and knees and thighs and crotch and up through the meat and heart and spaces of me

to that spot between my temples where bad days are wound, and things seen I'll never unsee live, and oily, coffee-dark sludge precipitates and filters into reeking, poisonous pools on hidden shores at the edge of consciousness;

and as I hypnotically focus tight and bright and tunnel-visioned on vast, sweeping asphalt curves down into the Red River bottoms, my eyes watering even behind the unbreakable lenses as the powerful machine and I dance

the thunder and roar and wind and tides slide, slow, and delicate, and sharp as a fine blade, into that spot and sing a wordless note that slowly disconnects it from itself and breaks it all away and dissolves it into a distant dark dream that fades like smoke.

In Our Next Episode: Good ride yesterday. Makes a good day today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. I'll let you know.