The Latino boxers call it "heart".

The will to accept the baffling lash -
the crack of skin and wet leather.
To push their gaze through goose-egg eyelids,
and blood-thick eyes.
To shuffle their anticipation forward
with clenched jaw pinned to chest.
To dance over the afterbirth carnage of the canvas,
measuring their pilgrimage in droplets,

They rail through ragged breath.
Swim through tearing lungs.
Rally the blood in the throat 
and step with the left hook to the body.
Step, punch and step.

Americans and Europeans can't fathom this ritual -
this devoted penitence,
bloody flagellation,
and salvation of the human will.
This sport for the dirty-faced Columbian orphan
or the Mexico City street urchin.

The prescription for this sort of pain -
written on the heart at birth.


John Wesley Lampe

Copyright (C) 2007 John Wesley Lampe