The Exercise Bike

down in the home gym

locked in you select

from the bike's menu

one of the distance-only experiences

wet savannah

though you've never been

and just over a mile along

the almost tropical adventure

a single leaf up ahead

falls from a live oak dripping

with a faint green

cascade of

spanish moss

for the fit the unfit

the novices the road cyclists

the lean and hungry atheists

the overweight god-fearing believers

the users in their free 90-day trial

the rarely pedaling over-subscribers

the leaf always snaps

in a breeze they can't feel

every time they pedal on

past the one-mile mark

the leaf flutters

on its way to the ground

for skeptics for critics

for those who ride in long rows

at college gymnasiums at military bases

all in their uniforms and synchronized paces

whether or not the planet is paved over

or the lowlands flood and the trail submerges

the single leaf lets go

descends ahead on the route

ceases to exist as it touches a spot

on the dirt path below

you can't see as you pass

down it goes for those

who exercise free-will

by canceling their subscriptions

for survivalists unplugging

their connection to the grid

for each and for all

if the program runs

the oak leaf drops

like the times square ball

announcing a new year

so cycle through the sweat

perspire through the pump

once the workout's begun

there nothing to do

to reverse what's been done

only the AGI overlords

can if they choose

manipulate the experience

by editing you

or the leaf or

the rest of the world out