------------------Permafrost
Richard Robbins Running in the Fog I'm not thinking about mystery. I'm not thinking about blindness. I run through a cloud over barely thawed streets and walks and can almost feel the pulse in my ear match each foot-fall. I'm thinking about not slipping on ice invisible to my naked eyes. I hear crows, bells of a garbage truck backing up. The ground cracks for a moment under my shoe but I stay in stride. The first thick burning starts in my calves. By mile I, my whole body's warm, and now it makes its own fog as the air of my lungs goes back outdoors. I'm not thinking ofthe way clouds form at the face of our differences. By now, I've started the rosary at least once to keep my mind from heavy jelly legs and short wind. Some days I say three before I'm through. I'm thinking of pain mostly, the way I careen away from it. A long time ago, I found out that two miles is a small wall to run through. Any season, indoors or wind, on a course over mud, the body
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