Halcyon

I’m riding from one university to another to get to a class
I leave between classes to spend more time riding
and listening to mixed tapes

when the batteries are too flat to turn the spools, I flip to radio
a serendipitous gift bursts from the babble, direct from the archive,
one of my favourite songs of the moment…

       it’s from a record that straddled the break-up
       at first sounding like an insurgent challenge to divide his and hers
       later it sounds like a sunlit cornerstone to the soundtrack of my spring

       life has never been so uncompressed; whooshing past, I net what I can
       by now I am flourishing, multitasking like a demon
       loving reading, riding, drinking, dancing – as much as I can manage

       I dance – near pretty girls I barely see – enthralled by big, loud sounds and stable, flat spaces
       I’m learning whole new ways to describe and comprehend
       I’m writing, forlornly, a thousand sketches because I like the way they sound

       I am the fittest I will ever be, with nicotine-stained fingers and taking coffee with a drip
       I love myself and
       I am lonely

…a car pulls up beside me at the lights
I get two thumbs-up and grins from the front seats
as I smile back, I catch sight of myself

I am dancing in the saddle
passionately lip-syncing the noisy, pop, fluff nonsense
and they’re tuned into the same song

//ends

>> month of poetry 2012