The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

out here it's all cheatgrass
purple pitted sunset sweating
and swearing down the sidestreets
empty little alleyways
graveled arbors

out here it's amber and hellish
auspicious hours passing in reckless joy
wasting down the riverside and
flogged till each memory is gone
till there's nothing but eternities

out here there is a sadness, in these parts
feet torn to shreds and calves burning
shrinking trees flightless birds
the sky's magnitude and her devotions
outshouting all the rest

out here it's nothing but headlines
blisters bursting red
swallowed to drowning in desire for the finish
made with the joy/lost
in the rhythm

back to Wildwood the runner goes
if there are rabbits they are gone back into the underbrush
if there are squirrels they have fled
if there is faith it has ascended, hanging from the branches--
undercutting the air

out here she's unaware beyond the next
step each footfall tracing an outline
shadowed by dusk ripped through
with grace
the rest, is unimportant.