A Runner's Sonnet

My oldest sister reminded me of this sonnet today. It caught my breath, and ... well ...

My bones are rods of pain that prop my heart,
my legs, my lungs, and pieces of my brain.
I run. The rest of me is wasted parts,
dead weight that dares my cadence to sustain
a pace marked by the time it takes each foot
to rise and fall like some iambic curse
that screams a perfect rhythm when it's put
in place in paved, pedantic, measured verse.
The road becomes a sonnet which I write,
compelled to breathe each rhyme that sears my throat.
The road is black; my lines are thin and white,
compared to that which those before me wrote.
I stride to hide my tears within my sweat
and face the finish-line without regret.

- T. Scott Ennis, September 2008