The Blood I Can Draw

Joe Frazier’s left hooks
were on my mind
right after I turned eleven
and had just listened, surreptitiously,
to the Fight Of The Century
on a scratchy AM radio
a few nights before, so
although I was a righty
I threw one at Jeff Maxwell’s jaw
in the middle school gym
and (though we were just playing,
no animus between us) I laid him out
flat and crying, and I admit
it felt OK to see him there, sliding
on his ass away from me as I tried
to explain it was all in fun to Mr. Tornello
as he shook me and dragged me to
his sweat-soaked office to await
my parents;

and right jabs and Muhammad Ali
were on my mind
a few years later when Henry Gifford
got dropped, this time in anger,
on the shores of Thompson Pond
for cussing me out over losing my mind
over his breaking my switchblade, and this time
there was blood on him mouth
and I admit it felt OK
to see it shining moonlit black
on his face and I was glad
that I hadn’t had the knife in hand
at the time;

and kung-fu movies and Bruce Lee
were much on my mind a few years after that
when it felt OK to deliver
a straight-arm open palm blow to the side
of Joe Peron’s nose in a work dispute
in a warehouse, and there was blood again
and the gentle snap of his bridge breaking,
and he knelt holding his nose in his hands
that soaked and dripped in blood,
and that felt better than OK for a minute
and because we were men we just shook it off
and told no one of the fight.

They are all on my mind again,
childhood and adulthood, fighter heroes
of ring and screen, and I can’t shake off
being old and heavy, and thoughtful
about how much harder I could hit today
now that I know how it feels to hit.
How good it felt then, and how good it would feel again
if the opponents I have now could be
dispatched that easily;

but despairing of the unpunchable bills,
the bloodless banks, the rapacious
creditors, the creeping sense
of having no enemy I can beat,

I stand in the kitchen
thrashing the kitchen air —

cross, jab, hook, uppercut,
palm strike, temple strike,
slash and stab, icepick grip,
sword grip, kick a support
off a rickety chair.

I wish I could be a pacifist
in soul and action
but I am not.

And the urge to admire again
the blood I know I can draw,
to know the joy of winning simply and quickly,
is almost more than I can bear.