We speed past the same breed of low‐tide pelicans

I remember

from when I lay with you,

amongst the flattened reeds and upturned kayaks.

Everything smells of barbecues and lakewater

as we ride east, now, toward the sea,

where the teapot fumes from the smokestacks

merge with the upside-­down cauliflowers,

and you question our relationship early today,

on a cloudy public holiday.



We cross the newly raised cycle tracks crowning the flumes

and plane off-­road into a squawk of cormorants.

Our bikes pin-­wheel through the marshy puddles,

splattering black mud on lycra, till we collapse on the far grass.

I smell the dankness of the urban run-­off, and the cool water,

and remember my frustrated haste,

and your slow and easy laughter.

We eat soba noodles today from our panniers,

then remount and roar back west, past the pines

and the inert fisherman, unwaving

in their timeless fashion,

and I wonder if I too am frozen,

ever-­circling.


I believed, back then that

love, far from growing, is a growth,

like algae, like the houses

fusing to the edge of the lake,

a slice of waterfront

that we must race to clutch, at a speed you loathed

until you couldn’t anymore.

Now you and I fly on carbon fiber,

and I want to tell you that I love you, quickly,

before the setting sun pierces the vegetables.