The Treadmill

Your hands are chained above your head.

The iron cuffs chafe your wrists.

Your feet are hanging down on the moving steps.

Your feet are free to dance.

The machine is wound up at one end

and made wider or thinner at the other.

Each measurement depends on the handlers’ moods.

Your aim is to keep your feet moving.

Keep moving your feet but getting no where.

Miss a step, trip up and you lose the rhythm.

Not able to catch the step, you hang by your wrists

and each mill step batters your legs and knees.

The driver’s cat is on your back. On your back until

you find that rhythm again and dance, dance good.