Anne Babson

CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHT
____________________

“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Mark 16:18

It’s the night of the second fight between Frazier and Mohammed Ali,
The one where Ali fights for his title back. Everyone is going to watch.
I am eight years old. My mother is taking care of me. I have a disease.
The doctor has given her medicine for me which says “WARNING: LETHAL
IN LARGE DOSES.” I don’t know how much I am supposed to take, but
She gives me half the bottle, tells me to lie down, that it will all be better

Soon. I climb on top of the earth-tone bean bag in front of the new, better
Television she has just bought and watch the red-robed Mohammed Ali
Climb into the ring, then lift his hands high, his gloves like two rifle butts.
I clap. I like Ali, and I turn to tell my mother so. She nods, looks at her watch.
Howard Cosell twangs at us, “And there he is, Jumpin’ Joe Frazier, the lethal
Weapon of the heavy weight circuit.” I’ve liked boxing ever since my disease

Started. The doctors are not sure what is wrong with me. They say I get disease
Symptoms that don’t match. I fainted in class, but the teacher made me better
By giving me some of her sandwich. I was really hungry. My mother got lethal!
She came to the school, threatened to sue them. Cosell shouts, “Mohammed Ali!
Is he still the greatest? Can he overcome his desperate defeat? America watches!”
My legs feel tingly now. I roll like a log all the way over, touch my butt,

Half-spank it. My brother tries to roll a tank over my back. “Stop it! You butt-
Head!” I murmur. I feel too drowsy to hit the toy away. It must be my disease
Again. That’s what my mother always says all the time to me. I want to watch
More of the fight — it’s only round one, but I am getting sleepy. “Feel better?”
My mother asks me, smiling broadly. I nod, then turn back to catch Mohammed Ali
Land a staggering punch to Frazier’s jaw. A bell rings. It echoes, sounding lethal

Somehow. Round two begins. I am blinking hard. My sharp concentration is lethal.
I see Joe Frazier shifting his weight from back to front. The shorts make his butt
Shiny. I wish I had a pair of shiny shorts and some big red gloves, I think, like Ali.
I need all the talent of a butterfly-floater, bee-stinger, I think, to fight this disease,
Whatever it is. The doctors, and the teachers, they sometimes seem nervous watching
For my mother’s arrival. I wonder why. Other kids are staying away until I get better,

That’s what my mother says, but Kimberly and Melissa want to come over now, better
Or not. Their parents said they could come over, so why are they not allowed? “Lethal
Things hang in this air, honey,” my mother says, smiling. Whenever I keep a watch
Out for other kids on bikes, she closes the blinds. “They should stay home.” “But,”
I protest, “Why can’t I have the other kids here? They don’t care if I have a disease!”
This is a very big house, and on the bulbous screen, the heavyweight Mohammed Ali

Looks small. He is getting smaller as my eyes blur. I imagine I have Mohammed Ali’s
Jab. I have muscles. I can beat this thing that plagues me. For a moment, I am better
Than all the silence around me. For no good reason, I remember the song that says, “silence
Like a cancer grows.” It’s the only sound in my head. The screen shows people shouting, but
The screen is quiet. I am so sleepy. My mother stands over me as I go out. “Lethal
in large doses,” my quiet brain mutters to itself as a last thought. I do not dream. Watch

me though, how I wake up the next morning in my own bed in a new nightgown! Watch
How I run downstairs, see my mother drop her coffee mug — like Frazier, she thought Ali
was down for the count, and I see this. I understand that I am the champion now. Lethal
punches may get thrown but my guard will stay up from now on. Last night I learned better.
I see it all. My mother, I know, waited for me to die from too much medicine, no food, but
I float into the kitchen like a butterfly, and I sting like a bee, when I tell her, “My disease

Is over now. I won’t take any more medicine. I’m hungry now. I never had a disease,
did I?” She denies it and laughs, but I know. I jab like a champ, “I won’t ever just watch
the rest of the family eat breakfast again,” — Where do I get the guts to say this? — “but
I would like some of those scrambled eggs now.” I scarf them down like Mohammed Ali
in training. I know everything, that no poison control was phoned last night, just a better
quality-flanel-than-usual-coverup-nightgown was put on me while she waited for the lethal

dose to hit me. She stares at me like I’m a ghost now. I am a ghost this morning, with lethal
vision. I have only died to the illusions of this family. I have been cured of the deadly disease
that is hereditary here. She chirps out something sweet about how well I look, but I know better.
I am only eight, but I know it all. She didn’t call the ambulance last night, just sat in a watch
over me waiting for my last breath, but she didn’t know that I was just like Mohammed Ali,
that from now on I will be like him, that there will be no more sick days taken ever here, but

While I say this, an eight-year-old, only better, I wonder how I am alive to spit back lethal
lies into the face of my opponent, who watches me like a vulture, but I was born an Ali,
whether they called me Clay or not, and I know from this day on that the disease is hers.

-

JIM
_________

When we first brought him in, all they told me was that he was one of
them, and that was good enough for me.
He sat in the corner, bleeding down the wall that
I knew I was going to have to clean later — it was my turn on mop patrol,
so I got some napkins from the mess hall
and held them against his head,
figuring, this way is easier.

He looked at me,
all grateful-like, and I looked away
and cursed under my breath. I don’t know.

Then it was my turn to get the answers from him,
and they left us alone in the basement.
He looked relieved to see me — like I was on his side!
They had given me the wires, the battery, and I had
used them before, I knew just how to hook it all up,
I knew just where to stick the clamps, but
somehow, I couldn’t get the wiring straight — I don’t know.
I kept tugging at the red, then the black, and the guy,
he kept talking to me in that talk of theirs — you know what I mean,
it made me want to rip out his tongue with the battery pliers,
but then I looked up, and he had that thing going on in his eyes, that grateful thing.

“Scream,” I told him. “Scream!” I told him. Why, I don’t know.
I didn’t know if he could even understand me until he grinned and moaned
as loud as he could so that the Captain thought that the battery thing was working
just like it should. I felt sick. I should have been able to do it.
I guess it was just Friday, you know, an end of the week thing.
I tore his clothes so it looked like I got rough.
Kind of like sweeping the dust under the rug. I don’t know.

That night, while we were doing shots at the bar, I don’t know.
The guys said something about them, you know, them,
how they always look that stupid way and do that stupid thing,
and I just couldn’t — I don’t know.
I smashed my fist into the wall and told him to shut the fuck up.
“What’s with you?” they asked.
I said, “It’s just an end of the week thing.
It’s nothing. It’ll be gone on Monday. Let me get the next round.”

Then Monday, yesterday, it was worse. I mean, talk about a good job!
I get more vacation than my wife. We have this great house.
I get full medical, dental, and vision. Nobody gets vision, but I do.
It’s got a pension. It’s amazing what they give you if only you —
but you would have thought I was making minimum wage, the way I was acting.
I mean, I don’t know.

It’s a good job, but then, Monday, I actually volunteered for paperwork.
I kept out of the cell block all day. I turned the radio up so I couldn’t hear.
Then they dragged it in — dripping all over the floor — they said,
“Hey! Get a load! They really do think better without a brain!”
It was that guy — the one of them — wearing the clothes I tore up.
Laughing, like it was some big joke, they tossed me his head.
His eyes had that thing — that grateful thing — in them.

That’s why I’m here. I was filing his paperwork when it happened.
His name was Jim. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.
I’ll go with you to tell the others. Whatever.
I don’t know why. I just — I don’t know.

-

THE CHRISTIAN POET AWAITS HER SECRET LOVER
__________________________________________

The poet travels at the speed of sound,
A mach-one Machiavellian gait,
A saunter sonorous with rhythms found
In the breath between the words, the wait.
The lover travels at the speed of rocks,
Geological grapplings, erosions
In oceans, the torturous ticking clocks.
Time bombs build to awaited explosions.
The Christian travels at the speed of God,
A thousand years are as a day on Earth,
A day a thousand years above dirt clods,
And time is money, so what is time worth?
The yearning for paradise, for first kiss,
For couplet coupling produces no bliss.

For couplet coupling produces no bliss,
While digging the Grand Canyon with sieves,
Crafting the perfect verse that cannot miss,
Writing the publications the missives,
Counting the seconds, the syllables stressed,
The phone calls, the text messages, IMs,
The homeless sheltered, and the widows blessed,
The trochees, the anapests, the iambs,
The songs of songs singing, the saved, the damned,
The waiting awaited, the waiter waits.
The dark is whistled in, the minutes crammed
With conversations chaste, with dateless dates.
God is not dead, but how the empty tomb
Seems silent, corpse-like! He is coming soon.

Seams, silent, corpse-like – He is coming soon –
Stitch up my new curtains. I have a guest
Arriving to camp in my new bedroom,
But the plane seems late. I vacuum. I rest,
But when will the airport shuttle bring him?
I have lain out towels and scrubbed the tub.
Eyes closed, I feel an aching in my limbs.
The foot massage he gives, the cleansing rub
In my mind’s eye – the breath on my neck’s nape –
These haunt me. I am his, and he is mine.
I lean back on the sheets, let myself escape
The delay in a waking dream sublime.
It gets dark. I flip on lights. I’m ready.
It’s just flight delays make me unsteady.

It’s just flight delays make me unsteady.
They make you take off your sneakers these days.
It’s just like crossing the Serengeti,
Getting your lover home for holidays.
I’ve seen photos sent from her telephone.
I’ve heard her sigh my name on MP3s.
I think thick thoughts of her when I’m alone.
Cyber sex is just shooting in the breeze.
I want the real thing. I want the real thing.
I’m sick of virtual reality.
I’ve packed some poetry. I’ve packed a ring.
I’m entering her principality.
At the end of sonnets, after end rhymes,
Time waits for no man. No man waits for time.

Time waits for no man. No man waits for time.
Women, on the other hand, have patience
Drilled into them young, polished so it shines.
Strapped to wrists, the nosegays of impatiens
Teach forbearance. The rope strapped between knees
Tied to create a most delicate walk,
Hesitation steps in ceremonies
Down dusty aisles to avoid idle talk
Works like a saint medallion against plague.
Saint Lady of our Piquant Murmurings,
Zip up our high-gloss lips. Teach us the vague
Reply to the flirtatious inviting.
Make us your own anemic acolytes,
Faithful dieters without appetites.

Faithful dieters without appetites
Baffle the passionate poet gourmands.
True devotees perform the ancient rites
Bound by no holy book, no holy lands.
Extravagant creatures, Eden lovers,
Return to the garden through the fence chink.
An apocalypse horseman stares, hovers,
But does nothing to stop us, does not blink.
Storm turrets of earthly Jerusalem,
Crusaders armed only with the fig leaf!
The fruit of the knowledge rots on the stem.
Ignore the serpent, whose tenure is brief.
Return. The narrow path leads up and in.
Return, eaters, for the supper within.

Return, eaters, for the supper within.
Return, penitent ones, for the banquet
Reception. Return. Original sin,
Copied often, turns redundant, vanquished.
Return, beloved. Come back to bed now.
It was just a nightmare that startled you.
Return to the warm sheets and stout pillows.
I have a goodnight kiss for you-know-who.
Return, sacred head. Return, living word.
The poet calls your name, peers through shutters.
She travels with the lover and the Lord.
She hangs on all truth you ever uttered.
Wherever sin is, Grace the more abounds.
The poet travels at the speed of sound.

–

Anne Babson’s work has recently appeared in Bridges, Barrow Street, Connecticut Review, The Pikeville Review, Rio Grande Review, English Journal, New Song, The Penwood Review, Sow’s Ear, The Madison Review, Atlanta Review, for which she received an International Merit Award, Grasslands Review, WSQ, Global City Review, Comstock Review, California Quarterly, Wisconsin Review, The Red Rock Review, and many other publications.