Boxer, Get Up--A New Poem

trying to breathe
through bruised nostrils
and shattered dreams;

trying to remember love,
a woman's touch
that mattered,
to the core
of a now
battered soul;

trying to see through eyes,
swollen shut
by anger and pain,
left by
the surprised sting
of
a failed love affair;

trying to stand,
under shoulders,
weighted down,
by an uncertain future
and an all-too-brief past,
rendered moot,
by present misery.

The boxer,
left alone in the ring,
save,
for a few loyal diehards,
come to his aid,
mutters,
nay, whispers,
a short prayer,
to a God,
he's not sure
is listening anymore,
to somehow,
have the strength
to get up
and fight
another day.

© 2012 Joseph Powell