Island bicycle (Poem)

My mind raced spun and clicked

through paths flanked in wheat grass,

barley the color of an almond sunset,

trees older than happiness.

My feet spun like planets around their masters.

My smile serenely slid across my face,

nonsense notes from my throat 
joining the unfettered warble of island birds

as they watched me,

curiously turning tiny heads towards my bicycle,

becoming a metal streak in a landscape unscratched by human lines.

Meters forward I encountered her.

For a hiccup-small second

she splashed my sight with a wave.

Hair the color of a summer's dusk

smile three horizons wide

laughter like a wind-chime

loosely buttoned shirt flapping, osprey-white.

Later, in the village tavern I listened.

Muted plates and warm coffee mugs

were a soft music behind lowered voices, and

I asked two men old as oceans

whether they had ever seen my vision.

I got baffled looks in return.

My mind stumbled,

missing a gear

imperceptible failure, 
and when I turned to the empty space beside me,

a glass of ox-blood red wine in hand,

deeper than cliff crags,

and spicier than a Moroccan autumn,

I sighed a thousand longings away

and quietly finished my meal.