I Use a Computer Program to Pretend

This is what I do several mornings a week with the help of a computering cycling program.


   I Use A Computer Program to Pretend

      I’m climbing Alpe D’Huez again
      and the cyclist on the video who always
      passes the photographer first again refuses
      to take a number for his photo,
      and I wonder if he is irritated
      with his solitary suffering
      being interrupted or is he merely
      too cheap to buy a photo of himself
      doing what he already knows he did?

      Or like me, does he prefer
       motion to memory
       and memory to mementos?
       My pedaling takes me back
       more than the computer video-
       my lungs and legs beginning
       to ache as I also pass the photographer.

       If he offered me a number,
       I would also refuse since I still
       have my lungs and legs
       and my pleasant pain
       and this sweat0soaked
       poem.