Tumble Love

(a bicycle epiphany)

I carried the heavy baggage

through most of the ride,

considered the balance

of expectations, deliveries,

considered the relative merit

of what we must have thought

were our positions

Considered how to hold the slight —

to be indignant, to be chastened

(while the almost rain, the dull damp,

did nothing to alleviate my state)

I shuffled around those

anxieties, justifications,

all the long words with edges

that poke out, the carrying of which

makes me awkward

Till suddenly I realized

they can all just fall away

in a tumble love that feels

warm and roly about everyone,

that gathers them in like soft puppies,

delighting in my surrender

to their charms.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 8, 2016