Riding Bikes
They drink hot tea beneath the tarpaulin and fill their stomachs with eggs and rice and when the rain passes they break camp and ride a trail cut into an exposed hillside and the sun burns off the fog until there is only blue sky and the birds and for a moment he imagines they ride a giant’s knuckles in the black of space. He fires the bike’s engine across a drying creek. He sucks at the tube drawing water from his back. A branch smacks off his visor and when the leaves clear the road drops and the bike jumps and he leans back and the bike resettles onto the dried mud. The dirt curls and gasps and he weaves and jumps stumps and more branches rip at his jacket and pull at his handlebars; the trail opens along a stream and she disappears around the next bend.
They set camp at the confluence of the streams. Their hammocks hang where the mud turns to sand. They swim naked in a deep green pool and when he grabs her thighs she laughs sharply and the birds give different warnings. A whip spider scuttles past; a short rain moves through.
She draws an outline of a fox in the sand. He draws a jaguar. They draw a line between them and they stand on either side as though acting upon opposing stages. They pace.
That night they kiss and crawl into their hammocks without food or fire or conversation and listen to the night alone. He peers at the swollen moon on the bending pool and in the dark he hears her cough from her hammock and then breath with ancient sleep.