MARATHON

for PR — Athens 2004

Imagine a poem twenty–six miles long:
impossible! Heat kicking off
the tarmac like Noguchi's shoes
as she becomes a willowy mirage
a minute downhill. Tell me Paula,
what do you think about
alone on the road? Jesus Christ,
the thumping metre of your stride
would drive me nuts. Makes me think
of camels carrying T.E. Lawrence
over the Nefud: Akaba by land.
With that for comparison, yes,
you could be forgiven going mad.

Ndereba's shadow ghosts past
as the setting sun hold steady
up ahead. It's like running
through warm water
or butter. Concrete treadmills
beneath your feet. Six kilometres
to the finish and almost
silent. This is how
poems end; stumbling
to tearful, bewildered halts,
empty as water bottles
on lonely roads, where slow claps,
like camels, must carry us home.