Workout

Another first draft for my Olympic series:

Workout

Healthy fitness - an exercise
in barrenness to row the gym
that broods beneath the streets
of Victoria. I stretch and lift
in rows plugged into video,
music, heartbeats clicked
in numbers charting courses
across programmed terrains;
compete to lift an extra
second, kilo, beat the loser
dribbling sweat next door -
torture myself in direct debits.

St James's Park at night is lit
with coloured bulbs, their beams
stretching limbs of bare trees
into alien architectures. I break
the empty peace of pelicans
with steady breaths, heels lift
and reach across the grass:
a momentum alone in the cold air.
This is competition, the chase
to catch canada geese, to lap
the lake, to sneak between
the drizzly London mist.