Shadow Boxing
By Philip Levine
That man with the cat face circling the ring
long spidery arms at his sides, is Gavilan,
oiled and ready, the one-time cane cutter
now fine-tuned to destroy. He’s waiting.
If someone would step up, he’d hold down
the rope’s middle strand with unblinking, bloodshot,
almond eyes. The dusty light of August
1948 falls across the Kid’s bronzed shoulders
as now he dances counter-clockwise flicking
out first a left, then a right. “Estamos listo,”
says the bald trainer.
...“Ready or not,”
is what I heard. I stayed less than a month
in Havana, slept late, ate only Chinese
to make my money last, drank rum straight,
walked evenings by the great harbor
where the sea spread out, blackening
around the first shivering stars. The delicate
pale roses and ochers of the castle walls
and the echoing cathedral vanished into
shadows by the time I gave up and turned
through the mid-night streets to find
the Calle Real, the Hotel Obisbo, the past.
From October, 2009
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