fight night, punk bitches
FLYING OVER SONNY LISTON
by Gary Short
Sonny Liston is on all fours,
trying to rise, a flame of pain
in the center of his head.
The crowd noise blurs,
then distances, as though he is shut
in a room by himself.
In his face there is silence.
His skin glistens with sweat,
& the glare & flurry of camera flashes
are far-away lights in his eyes.
Cassius Clay thin & sharp, stands
above him, arms in a recited W.
The airplane rises over the cemetery
where Liston is buried
next to the runway at McCarran Airport.
What I recall is his bad press--
how he learned to box in prison,
how he hung out with the worst people.
His violence & his size,
a film clip of him
sullenly jumping rope
to a record of "Night Train."
A woman in a pink blouse sits next to me.
Her fingers try to memorize a thick crucifix
on a chain around her neck.
She's nervous. But from this safe distance,
looking out the oval window
& beyond the wing, I see the cross
of the airplane shadowing grave sites.
A boxer knows momentum
can suddenly shift. One blow
changes everything.
The plane lifts. Closing my eyes, I hear
the referee's eight-count, the knockout signaled.
Liston is out of time & still on his knees,
suffering & silent, "Inarticulate
in the way we all are," James Baldwin wrote,
"when more has happened to us
than we know how to express."
In eight seconds an aircraft can bank into
& fly through fists of clouds
above the city of Las Vegas
& the grave of Sonny Liston.
He died alone in a motel room.
His life was nothing like mine,
& so we share a solitariness,
like the passengers on this plane who rise
or fall together
& individually, each with defeats.
The fight for survival is the fight.
There's at least one person who likes this poem. And, you know, that's enough.
by Gary Short
Sonny Liston is on all fours,
trying to rise, a flame of pain
in the center of his head.
The crowd noise blurs,
then distances, as though he is shut
in a room by himself.
In his face there is silence.
His skin glistens with sweat,
& the glare & flurry of camera flashes
are far-away lights in his eyes.
Cassius Clay thin & sharp, stands
above him, arms in a recited W.
The airplane rises over the cemetery
where Liston is buried
next to the runway at McCarran Airport.
What I recall is his bad press--
how he learned to box in prison,
how he hung out with the worst people.
His violence & his size,
a film clip of him
sullenly jumping rope
to a record of "Night Train."
A woman in a pink blouse sits next to me.
Her fingers try to memorize a thick crucifix
on a chain around her neck.
She's nervous. But from this safe distance,
looking out the oval window
& beyond the wing, I see the cross
of the airplane shadowing grave sites.
A boxer knows momentum
can suddenly shift. One blow
changes everything.
The plane lifts. Closing my eyes, I hear
the referee's eight-count, the knockout signaled.
Liston is out of time & still on his knees,
suffering & silent, "Inarticulate
in the way we all are," James Baldwin wrote,
"when more has happened to us
than we know how to express."
In eight seconds an aircraft can bank into
& fly through fists of clouds
above the city of Las Vegas
& the grave of Sonny Liston.
He died alone in a motel room.
His life was nothing like mine,
& so we share a solitariness,
like the passengers on this plane who rise
or fall together
& individually, each with defeats.
The fight for survival is the fight.
There's at least one person who likes this poem. And, you know, that's enough.