Some Thoughts on Running as a Form of Recreational Loco-motion

My ponderous legs

chug and churn

up the hill

as if laden

with cinder blocks,

or 25-pound sacks of flour

intended for that pizza place

over by the Kroger.

Any moment now….

I wait for the crack --

the gunshot-like snap of a hamstring

to echo through the neighborhood,

bouncing off of the tidily manicured Tudor

over to the stack stone façade

of the house with the man

who always cuts his grass too low.

In a minivan

the lady from the cul-de-sac

motors by,

chatting on her iPhone – snickering,

no doubt,

at the idiot who looks near cardiac arrest

as he lumbers by the mailbox

at 1252.

I lift an index finger

in recognition of her,

so as not to appear rude.

Thankfully,

I quit smoking 10 years ago,

or I’d be bent over on the sidewalk,

hacking up a lung

(or some suspicious viscera)

by the freshly painted fire hydrant

at the bottom of the hill.

Or perhaps I should’ve never quit.

And instead

lapsed into middle age,

Archie Bunker-like:

a comfy chair to cradle me,

and a tv tray

with a ham and swiss on rye

as my reward

for a day well done.

Michael McIntyre

Dacula, 2010