Yellow Dust

Yellow Dust makes these runners
run with white masks over their mouths,
safe from the river's smell that covers
the track, but not from this wind blowing south.
They look like surgeons rushing to an operation
as they breathe in their own heavy release
of stress, excitement, anger, or self-satisfication -
whatever makes people run these days when nothing seems
to chase them, except for those unseen things,
which there is no mask, no cover, no amount of speed
that can shake away those feelings that cling
to, that stick to, the heart that pumps
the monotone motion of arms swinging
in rhythm with desperate feet that cramp
but still run foot over foot over cramping foot.