Two women running

You and I

Bitter cold at times

snow tugging at our legs

frozen energy bars in fleece

pockets

matching knitted gloves

headlight perched on

foreheads.

 

Icy Gatorade reddens our lips

in heady heat.

Swiping at gnats near

the Great Salt Lake.

Wildlife spotted on mountain

roads: a deer, a skunk, dogs

barking at our heels.

We pass scrub oak, houses

cocooned in silence, fields

of chocolate-vanilla cows.

 

At times jaundiced with life

we gather the antidote

with miles of bare-bone

dialogues

reaping color to skin

with the rising sun on a Saturday

dawn.

 

I follow single-file as a car

passes.  I have been following

you for years.

Just to that sycamore, the

bend in the road,

the red mailbox, the stop sign.

We can make it to there.

 

You are there

running beside me during

the fog of depression. Until

hope falls again like the heavy

wet snow.

 

Two women running

You and I

One foot, than the other

The unearthly closeness we feel a

fter eighteen miles.

With gritty skin and aching limbs

Yet joyful

we knead solace into our soreness

Our hearts beating like wings.