Half-Marathon

The night before my first half-marathon,
I sit in my apartment alone, ice on my knees,
And wonder what makes me do these things.
I am not a born runner, an obsessive jogger
Or a competitive athlete; for me, it means
Work and pain, eroding knee-caps. So why?

I don’t know but I’m guessing it has something
To do with these griefs, old and new,
These gaps, and absences,
These vacancies, and fallacies,
This fabric of middle age,
Aghast at the emerging pattern,
Beginning to fold into itself,
Reluctant not to give it another try,
Pushing, mostly blindly,
Towards the promise of that finish line
Where, for a deliciously blissful second
(As when after a long climb
The ground finally levels out)
None of it really matters,
There are no accounts to reckon.

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