The [Former] Heavyweight Champion of the World

When the bell rings he
comes from all angles, short
water drop jabs to face
and shoul­ders; feet cat-con­fi­dent
sly-eyed with years of train­ing.

lat­er, a sin­gle upper­cut
under­cut slips by and while
he takes it stand­ing, the
judges declare

defeat by deci­sion.

This one goes out to any­one who has ever worked extreme­ly hard for some­thing only to be [what it seems like] arbi­trar­i­ly dis­missed as unwor­thy for that very thing. It needs plen­ty of work, but I’ll save that for lat­er. Work­shop­ping is always wel­come on these.