Free for a moment

Tonight I get my bike out just to feel the breeze on my face.  The downtown is empty and alive only to me.  Every vacant square of sidewalk concrete pulses life through my tires and into my bones, a rhythmic rumble that increases in tempo to match the burning of restless legs.  Drifting into the street itself, I weave through the yellow stripes like needle and thread.  The wind picks up and the streetlights dance, suspended as marionettes, casting shadows as wild and nimble as I have ever seen.  The very sight is enough to blot out my neuroses, to free a mind caught in the spokes of a wheel without friction.