Shopworn

I’ve lived this life, this blow by blow.
Fancy footwork makes fancy ruts.
Sometimes blood must flow,
And what can’t swell gets cut.

I keep my glove above the broken bone,
Regardless of what keeps landing.
I’m losing the plane of horizon,
But winning means standing.

My fist is a foreign language.
I can’t see where or who to attack.
Bearing the barrage of anguish,
Waiting for the bell to pull this back.

I withdraw to my corner stool.
My peripheral friends make me flinch.
I know I can’t get comfortable.
No boxer trusts the bench.

Another bell, another chance,
To beat the thing that’s beating me.
I move my feet into the dance,
But in my eyes burns my defeat.