On Hurricane Jackson

Now his nose’s bridge is broken, one eye

will not focus and the other is a stray;

trainers whisper in his mouth while one ear

listens to itself, clenched like a fist;

generally shadowboxing in a smoky room,

his mind hides like the aching boys

who lost a contest in the Panhellenic games

and had to take the back roads home,

but someone else, his perfect youth,

laureled in newsprint and dollar bills,

triumphs forever on the great white way

to the statistical Sparta of the champs.

Source: Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry (Seven Stories Press, 2001)