Hymn

That quality of the great boxers to be able to stand there and take shots, gargle with firewater, encounter intoxication at sub- and supra-atomic levels, to leave one’s sandals at the crater’s lip like Empedocles, and descend, not say: I’ll be back, not think: fifty-fifty, to vacate molehills when dwarves want space to grow, to dine alone, indivisible, and able to renounce your victory— a hymn to that man.