Summer L Ride

7-9-12

Lions at the gates of the Harris Trust and Savings face each other trapped in bas relief, yet ready to ravage all who enter.  Huge marble columns, ominous in their girth, slumber above the revolving doors and white-shirted slaves below. "It's out there. You can see it. We can help make it happen. Harris."

The "bird street" in Hong Kong starts chirping at dawn, well after the fish mongers have been to the docks and back with their load for the day.  Songbirds snatched up in distant forests now occupy one cubic foot of cage, flitting yellow orange purple red, wings clipped for good measure, waiting for a "home" though a cage in a house is still a cage. Were it born to the cage it would not know it was trapped, until a free bird happened by and flaunted its unhindered flight.  Was I born to such a cage? Where are the bars?  I've seen others fly by -- brave, untethered, death-defying in their seeming certainty.  They will not be bound, they will not abide.  Perhaps nice guys finish last because they showed up late, or forgot to register or couldn't find the starting line.

It's always what we don't have, isn't it.  Comfort within oneself and where we happen to be at any point in time is so elusive as to almost be unread.  Or is that too general and really it's about me?  Never comfortable in my own skin, ever looking outside, wondering, not feeling, thinking too much.  Always wanting for a touch, a warm embrace, lusting after those passing glances.  Legs in the summer surround the eye - a perverse progression, so close, so near it makes every man ogle, for his heart says, "I want more."

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Covert glances of every curve, muscle, and exposed vein. Convex visions of rebirth surging from elasticized waistbands, the only think left to give any berth; otherwise constrained. A supple shoulder beckons to be caressed, barely moving, invisible follicles on end, attentive for the slightest breeze, a sigh even, that rewards the nakedness of summer.  Soles, ankles, calves and thighs, it's a glory ride, today, in summer on the L.