Sugar Ray Leonard v. Wilfred Benitez

in the Hyatt Regency
watching the SRL Benitez fight
on Starz. My dad is reading Shogun
in the bed next to me
watching the dancing orbs of the gloves
four red balls
something cosmological
fire planet
the planet of work
the planet of trial and the welterweight of gravity
pulling your skin off your bones
even as I am brainwashed
at the NEVER WORK AGAIN seminar
by T. Harv Eker
time is running out
1:20 min left in round 13
and the dance still goes on without me
and I am the voyeur of violence
of black silken sweat
hooks into the body
red leather shining like mirrors
the whole crowd is high on the anticipation of release
the orgasm
the apocalypse
the flight of the mouthpiece
in a meteor shower of spit
against the black
round 14 starts
live from Caesars Palace
in Las Vegas, Nevada
and now I am participating
in real time ekphrasis
1:20 left in the 14
the red white and blue
ring ropes
like a Mondrian without Yellow
this boxing is a very intimate thing
sometimes the fighters look
like lovers
as they gasp in the exhaustion
hugging and bleeding
like lovers
sweating and breathing heavy
like lovers
weak in the knees and spinning
like lovers
round 15 starts
Benitez with a gaping wound on his third eye
and the crowd is yelling
Benitez with a series of lefts
gloves flying magnetic
last round adrenaline
in a chaos
legs buckle for Benitez
bleeding like a sadhu
from the third eye
Sugar Ray Leonard WINS
as the ref stops the fight with nine seconds left
at the end of the 15th
and the audience breathes
and divides its collective mood
and now Benitez and Leonard
are hugging and emotional
and i feel empty inside
sitting cross legged
reflected in a huge circular mirror
next to the TV
and the same way Malibu burns
i am burning
i am burning
towards freedom
the city of Los Angeles
seething in smoke
and the minds of billions
like billions of televisions
in the altars
of the dark church
of the body