The fierce
life is quiet
- Peter Gizzi
A lawyer knows he's drunk when he can't think of one single palindrome.
The boxer sobers at the word palindrome.
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If doubt beats working then let's ring in sick
and listen to the analogue of traffic
pass the rain off as silence -
Yes there is a difference between a punch & a slap
but logic wants to pacify what only the floor can level.
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The lawyer has spent his whole life adding letters to his name,
the boxer goes eachway on his with a point of the finger.
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Suppose is just another way of not doing anything -
suppose is a room with money stashed in the plaster -
suppose is a second wet dream in a wi-fi jockstrap.
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If it can be done then it was done, what else is there to prove?
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Boxing showers existentially : the world's got four walls
and the only way out is to give up. If you change his mind
what else is there left to make sure he's still there?
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The first time he punched a man the sound was nothing like he'd expected -
the lawyer has spent every moment since making his actions more real.
And if we're all just creatures of habit, why never the same black-eye twice?
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Who will lay the lawyer out? And who will cuckoo the boxer's silence?
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To the boxer the world is made of facts for which details are just sticking points.
The lawyer shuffles the sticking points to change the facts in the boxer's absence.
Who would your money be on to fight their way out of a paper fact?
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The boxer thinks that his flattening will make him more anonymous
- up they come from the same earth, these mushrooms -
and in a breeze the dome-weight bobs on a tender stem.
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The lawyer throws everything at him but even in this heat, nothing sticks.