At ringside, leather against his kidneys
sounds more explosive than on the big screen,
than the crack of the hook that stops the match,
that compresses the face of the blond Adonis
in the splatter of spit, snot and bloody slush,
a blow as solid as the last dull thud of an ax
just before a tree wavers and begins
its slow motion fall, the same slanted crash
of an overbuilt man whose hard collection
of muscle and skull booms and bounces
on and off the canvas to a familiar chant
of “Glass jaw! Glass jaw!” he doesn’t hear,
eyeballs rolled back until smelling salts
wake him to the frantic voice of an angry wife
below the ropes, shouting, “Get up, get up,
get up, goddammit, get up, get up…”
but he can’t, can’t move, can’t think, the next
heavyweight contender has again failed his fans,
and his trainer can only stand with an open mouth,
a water bottle, a wet rag, and turn away
from eager sportswriters typing the story
of a promising young fighter who will live
as a single man in his younger brother’s house,
forgetful at 33, spoon-fed at 37, dead at 39,
in a fight that never won a prize