Simple Brilliance

there's a simple brilliance to being a girl; love, hearts, giving. but would you say the same might be true of men; effort, work, movement. it's almost an hour before midnight and up the highway a motorbike roars, its engine painting a faint whir of grey across this dark night sky. maybe the driver is a woman, her helmet keeping her gender a secret from the world and all the cars she whizzes past. no one does a double take when they assume the driver is male. but once she reveals her shape? excitement and an invariable exclamation of unspoken wonder follow as her taillight passes over the next rise to disappear round the next hillside. there are few who lead and many who will follow. this is the way of men. they need a tall lightpost to find their way in this universe. to the lighthouse they go. but come too near and the rocks beneath the waves tear even the firmest of ships to shreds. and during this where are all the ladies? stood on widows peaks, staring out to sea, as equally hopeful as they are desperate, their purposeful ignorance on matters of seaward motion suddenly obvious and regrettable. but it's no matter these days. the GPS routes us where we want to go. the car starts remotely. the roads are paved smooth. the landlords collect. and the motorcycle roars on, its engine whir a faint sound of freedom, echoing off a hillside, somewhere past the last curve, somewhere off in the distance in this late spring night.