POEM: Runners in Pre Autumn

Off they go in a spandex flurry
Those famine-boned runners
whose skin is anerobic-mushroom-white,
whose hearts are larger than organic cantaloupe -
(I imagine them as pickled tomatoes floating in
magnifying mason jars larger than my fist!)

There they go - off in packs like wolves or some religious order -
These predawn priests who spread their gospel in beats-per-minute,
In recovery times, and later, in personal-bests over lattes.

They are trimmed in the fur of Velcro watches and Ipods,
And flexible wallets that stick to their shoes
They are the trappers of asphalt,
& the assailants of hills, hatted & visored,
gleaming gimmicked with GPS and altimeter -
Past colleges, around flower-skirted ponds
Over drowsy streams, past panting dogs
& cats aloof with puzzled faces,
Enrobed in the prepubescent season.

All around, leaves are stricken with the color of weakened tea.
Outdoors is a shivering pulse on the treadmill of a winter.
It waits for them, limbering up, performing calisthenics,
& the tuning fork of sinewy limbs, ready for the day’s route.