I have a few friends who ride bicycles. It’s not the fact that they choose this as their means of keeping fit; it’s that such otherwise-reasonably-stylish men should should so forsake their sartorial sensibilities….

Men in Lycra

The café morning peace

Undulates at their arrival;

The sleek men,

The coloured men.

They show no emotion

Yet, clumsy without their machines,

Try to look natural

In our world.

Almost inaudible, they murmur

Like out-of-work secret agents

At a convention

Of three;

Their anonymity heavily

Disadvantaged by their suits

In colours that bleed offence

And burn the eyes,

Overlaid with an irony

Of sponsorship by

Fast-food giants or obscure

Wing-nut manufacturers.

Still, they murmur, unaware.

They wear a penance for all

To see and we,

Incredulous, don’t know

What past wrong could be

So great;

The sleek men,

The coloured men.