The Courier

Speeding down the street faster than cars,
his motions are liquid, calm and resolute.
His path traces a most pleasurable curve through
a slalom of cracks, bumps, and holes in the pavement.

He rides on an ethereal railing that cuts the street
more elegantly than any straight line could.
One might think he were in flight,
but for the faint hum of his tires on pavement.

He then splashes into traffic like a whale off a diving board.
The cars, stagnant and festering, clog the heart of the city,
but the courier cuts through the dense shifting blockage
by navigating the slender avenues between cars and trucks.

The rain. It squeezes into the air like an unwanted partygoer.
Every turn, every stop, every attempt to elude it fails. It's there.
And with it comes malaise; a constant irksome depression of the mind.
Dampening the skin and soul alike, it is a plague of man and bike.

The snow drifts precariously down from a blanket of grey.
The gentle, gossamer quality of the substance is a ruse
that serves only to hide the horrible particles' true nature.
What is worse than riding wet? Cold and wet -- and this is snow.

The sun can be a friend while on a cold and blustery delivery,
but for half the year it is an oppressive, scorching fiend.
Sweat and sunburn are but the obvious injuries from the glowing orb.
Most treacherous is the blinding glare from the sea of cars.

With cuts and scrapes and pieces of asphalt jammed into his elbow;
packages spun around the city in a typhoon of logistics and confusion;
anxious clients, impatient recipients, and countless blithe receptionists
never consider the secret life and persistent will of the courier.

ALB 10-17-02