Bicycle Chain

When running as it should,

dirt from miles around

hops on for the exalting ride.

Those little overlapping plates

their black beards

hugging pins at their junctures

travel round a spinning Ferris Wheel

serving an expedient pair of feet.

A thousand moving parts

squalidly pressing and squeezing

precisely against one another

to give birth to the motion

that feeds on a clean blue horizon.

First published The Pangolin Review Sept. 8, 2018

Photo by Marc Wilnauer on Unsplash