Perchance to Run
by Jean L. Kreiling
I dream of running, feel my legs extending
beyond a sprinter’s reach into ballet,
elastic knees and elbows blithely bending,
uncompromised by decades of decay.
I barely touch the earth—each stride propelled
by just a moment’s contact with the ground,
the government of gravity now felled
as fantasy inflates each buoyant bound.
Immune from waking weariness, endowed
with lungs of limitless capacity,
I fly through sleep’s accommodating cloud,
and never doubt the dream’s veracity.
Awakened by the clock’s alarming bleat,
I hardly recognize my own clay feet.
