Passing on the Baton

a poem

His arms and legs were stiff inside 
from the miles completed behind him. 
And his throat and lips were dry from the heat 
waving off the tarmac beneath him. 

"I've run none too bad," he thought as he jogged
the last mile of his leg of the race.
"I've done my best like a man ought
and through pain I’ve kept the pace."
 
The zone to exchange the baton to …