RACER*

Slender, thinner than one ought,
Her thighs taut, her back sloped
To drive body-force into revolutions,
She conquers nature, a captain
At the helm, married to the wind
And snarling at her upstream cruise.
A jogger on jagged steel;
A devotee to the derailleur; a lover
Lashed to drooping handlebars,
She gloats in unstepped speed,
And the sprocketed ticking
Of her spoked feet rises and fades,
A hissing siren kissing asphalt,
Luring my legs to her ways.

*Originally published in Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature.  Vol. X, No. 2, Spring, 1993, page 60