Susan Senator

Fast comfort.

The top of the roller coaster.

A little danger stops my breath. Lifts my blood. My head floats near my neck. Legs orbit endlessly around their pedal planets. Highest gear feels like lowest. The world turns upside down. The best of childhood, like jumping off a swing at the scary point.

The hill.

It varies me daily though always the same. Yesterday: burning lungs, smooth muscles.  Today: short gulps of breath, burning pull of thigh.

Why? Still, if I stare only at the ground, submitting to my tire’s steady insistent seduction, if I remain mesmerized by my struggle, I don’t see what’s left ahead.

The summit.

Now, I am there, searing pain that I have anticipated in almost sexual certainty; it explodes in my throat, a supernova of satisfying pain, glorious but now dying down so quickly. I listen for it to give way to vast open air. The harshness softens and I breathe.

Soon, soon, the heart wakes up after its brief post coital sleep and relinquishes my blood. The red blanket covers me, calms my lungs with a mother’s hands and I am warm.

At last, in balance.