The old ones, the ones
who rest too long
between their sets
on machines resisting
the biceps and quads.
Gazing across the floor,
those old ones squinting, dimming
eyes focus on that fancy-figured woman
as she checks her phone
between toning her swelling
glutes and traps.
He has to turn his head.
The memories that he feels,
in a set too many, remembering
the rush again—salty ecstasy
mixed with sweat.
Sweet sweat as a healthy man once knew,
dropping from the chin of
that brunette-pony-tailed beauty
with her curving calves and slender waist.
True, she’s wearing too much make-up
in a sweaty gym, but still
he won’t complain
as she strains those deltoids—
posterior, with a pulley from the floor.
He rushes his set on the abs-
twist to catch sight of the blonde
with a leaping pigtails and killer
thighs, as she lowers her svelte body
for another set on the dead lift.
And looking into the carpet threads to reflect,
he counts his decades of wealth.
Will it bring him to that woman
with her tigress thighs, swollen
inside lavender tights, who
invites his gazing eyes?
Or how might he live his life now
to find himself on a weekend in Key West
with the sloe-eyed beauty
with the side of her head shaved
and a silver ring in nose?
while her tinted blue hair hangs down
on a yellow sports bra—she’s doing
more weight on the bench press
than he’s done in twenty years.
When rising from another set
of triceps, he glances again
at the brunette beauty, and
his heart leaps—she’s gazing at him.
But as he turns, he sees the wall
mirror behind, and now he realizes
the sweaty truth—she’s looking
through his arms akimbo to check
her own curving lines, running
through the illusion that is passing human.
