Ironmen

I pretend muteness when
he shares that the root
of his profession
is to educate,

my doctor raced
his last triathalon
for the sake of saying
he competed

you can’t school everyone
even if all beings
may be our teachers –

Pheidippides, that runner
who sped from the battlefield
to Athens, dropped dead
after sprinting twenty-six miles

this gospel the body knows already,
though its the mind that trains
to steel itself long distance,
screwing up one’s courage