I signed up for a mem­ber­ship at the gym two blocks from my work­place yes­ter­day and got up at 5:30am this morn­ing and rode the 23 in for my first work­out. I feel like I’m in the worst shape of my life, and I likely am, so I made sure to take it easy. There is a room where they have group exer­cise, but as none of the classes are sched­uled until 8 or so, I have it all to myself for some basic cal­is­then­ics and happy-​joy fenc­ing foot­work. I did that for about twenty min­utes, had a good long stretch and then ran for a half hour on the tread­mill and watched some dude stab an inflat­able snow­man on tele­vi­sion. A set of crunches later and I hit the show­ers: with­out a towel. [This over­sight will be reme­died tomor­row.] There is also a room at Fit­works [warn­ing: noise] where they show movies, a sort of tread­mill cine­plex, where peo­ple can run in the dark and zone out. They were show­ing Christ­mas at the Kranks yes­ter­day. I won­der if I can con­vince them to play Cri­te­rion films…

One block from work is a CVS, where I imag­ine I’ll be get­ting my post-​workout break­fasts. I bought some yogurt and gra­nola bars today. Rid­ing the gym, in the dark, on the bus, lis­ten­ing to Orion by Metal­lica, I felt like I was hav­ing a real-​life train­ing montage.

The city steams on win­ter morn­ings
like a spent horse
buses squall
in the dark

lock­ers hold ties
and work boots

another
heart pumps legs
pump heat hunts for
release—

pow­er­ing this
restive beast called Cleveland.