Workout sketch 1

There’s no easy uplift; gravity pulls hard on me.
I try to rise, can’t get free of the ground; these
ridges tug at my knees, my ankles. The air, which
should be thinner, thickens, as if my breath came
through a straw, from deep within a cave. It is all
work, this. My body is the stone of Sisyphus, as
I push myself up, and up. The one thing I’ll do is
what I know how to do, to NOT STOP. At the top,
finally, muscles knotting along my ribs, sternum;
now I follow the trail widdershins, as if unwinding
myself, unwinding these years and the mountain,
until I pass a point I’ve marked for my return leg,
elevation receding like a tide, its whirlpool trail
carrying the stone of my body down, and down.