Spokes speaking

not with the thick-thuck of the stuck trading card

revving an invisible engine,

but the simple swish-shoosh of warm rubber

on dead-petaled pavement

pedaled around winding corners

of a graveyard—

blurs of brick and headstone

run past

but also into distance dancing

beyond horizons

and closer than them, too.

So much closer, always.

But now is no time to remember the future—

this is the eye of the storm,

and the wind is picking up again against

my face no matter how fast

or slow I turn these tires.