24 July 2016

By the end of her row
nearly no light remained
hanging in the last of the day.
Her workout had been a good one.
She had felt the knots
in her back loosen, and dissolve.
She had felt her muscles strengthen.

The office seemed non-existent,
the hectic schedule of meetings
someone else’s.  She had
rowed through both
out on the water,
rowed through their tension.
She had rowed through the coil

of their rope.  She lifted her scull
out of the water.  The evening was hers,
the last evening before she had
to return to her executive world,
where rowing became
a state of mind,
her skull, her scull.

Philip Kuepper
(20 July 2016)