When you’re on that bike in your shorts, panting away
next to a Republican, a lot
of the inhibitions come off. The thought
of opposition warms to ardor as you sway
above the saddle, soaked shirt and gray
tits lumbering up and down, the hot
sweet sweaty scent your widened nostrils caught
wafting through the tropic humid furtive play
of glances, wheezing wet desire for
the philadelphian fondle of the ancient Greeks—
not sex, but something subtler, elder, male:
bonded for battle by the naked training floor—
peddles, rattles, gyrates, coughs and creaks:
hits the showers, back to work to fail.