Shaping Up

My father keeps hinting
at the road bikes that hang
like paintings in the bowels of the
garage, puts two new shiny water bottles
in the fridge, slips an old pair of cycling
shoes on the stairs, so to
make him happy,
I saddle up and
 
for a week we ride after dinner, legs
pumping in strained silence past flattened
fields, over winding two-lanes, hot country asphalt,
my breath coming in ragged rasps, keeping
time with the grinding and shifting
of the gears.
 
For a week I ease aching muscles into steaming
showers, gaze through the mirror as I work
the towel across my slim frame,
not me needing this ritual, but him –
hoping that whirring wheels on a
down-hill coast will roll
into conversation, a cool drink
of water the serum
to loosen my tongue,
revealing the man
I’m trying to become.