I was in a boxing ring inside a jewel box—
ropes, plush batting, turnbuckles. I was a rough
stone knocked from its setting—and canvas grit
on my cheek, nose bleeding. I was battered,
depleted, sweating, confused, and yet, flattened
and bruised, all I wanted was to be beaten again,
like that, fixed and pinned, to have my body broken,
trounced, by those sounds that made my ears bleed, too.
And so—splayed, unlaced, skittered and askew, kicked—
whatever of me had been guarded by fear and shame
or by avoidance winced, now lay disciplined, concussed,
deafened, as well as ravished, undone, confirmed.
Copyright © 2026 by Michael Collier. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 30, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
