Sorrow tells me I will not find myself,

recover the place within me that knew

the ease of things, 

the trill of birds calling one to another,

exploding hope and promise,

while my knee aches

from overuse, I think,

and I hear the broken wall clock’s

minute-hand swing down to five-thirty

every six minutes while

my phone’s time  reads phantom numbers 

in the dark, and I wish I

were bike riding with you

in Amsterdam—or in Brugge when

we road outside the city to Damme and back, 

through countryside of sweet green and windmills

and a bicyclist hit a woman walking,

or she had a stroke,

 and people stopped to help her,

frail and disoriented, move off the path,

and we went as far as the path would let us,

one destination to another,

to accept going nowhere as a place

we no longer refuse to go.