These poems originally appeared in Barrelhouse print issue 18, which you can totally buy by clicking on this link.
ROUND 1
You’ve taken punches
like a man in the liquor store
parking lot & that time
you checked out Eddie’s girl
for too long when you drove
from Pacoima with your friends
through hours of traffic to see
the Venice boardwalk at sunset.
All the girls pretty in their short-
shorts and bikini tops. You gripped
the blackjack in your pocket,
knew you could beat Eddie
like Ali did Terrell, yelling
What’s my name? But you let him
hit you because you knew the unspoken
thing between a man in love & a woman
is cruelty—the pleasure of hurting
someone other than yourself.
THE FACTS
after Bobby Chacon
ROUND 4
A hit to the chin
& you see
the black lights.
Then you’re driving
through the mall
in San Fernando.
You think, Where
have I been? & open
your eyes to the referee
counting slow
as honey glides
through a jar:
Five. Six. Seven.
His voice echoes
to no one but you.
You have to get up.
The round’s not over
& you’ve got a thick
skull, learned early on
you could take a punch,
absorb a man’s fist
in the brow or gut.
You rise but your body
stands still. You beg
your feet to dance
their way away,
your heavy hands
to shield your face,
as the challenger
charges toward you
like a tiger tasting blood.
PREDICAMENT
after Bobby Chacon
I’ve done a lot of fighting
from Inglewood to Sacramento
I knocked out the first guys I faced
in two rounds or less
but the chin don’t hurt
Val she’s tired of being a boxer’s wife
she’s always on me about it
the bruises & the cuts
& boxing
I have to get it out of my blood
I hope she doesn’t
get mad at me
I know she won’t
/
I know she won’t
get mad at me
I hope she doesn’t
I have to get it out of my blood
& boxing
the bruises & the cuts
she’s always on me about it
Val she’s tired of being a boxer’s wife
but the chin don’t hurt
in two rounds or less
I knocked out the first guys I faced
from Inglewood to Sacramento
I’ve done a lot of fighting
Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. Her debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, she is the author of three chapbooks and founder/editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry. Her poems and translations are published in New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others. Eloisa lives in Columbus, OH and is the founder of Costura Creative.