Boxing Year by Michael Verderber

Boxing Year

By Michael Verderber

My heart has been rung dry. My steam all but fizzled and my drive crashed. I feel like every time I turn around, another fist is waiting to land – a collision course trajectory.
        I am strained, drained, and up against the ropes. Left hook, quick jabs. Rabbit punch. These ropes hold me up and keep me from falling.
I wake, no time to train.
I wake, the bell rings. Jab, jab, uppercut. Jab to the job. Uppercut to the theatrical. Must keep my head up, can’t drop fists. Can’t leave an opening. Here comes a right hook right to the heart. I brace for more. Side step, quick step back.
Bell rings, men to your corner. I breathe for a few hours. I don’t hear a bell but it is back to work. Water bottle full of coffee rejuvenates.
Get back up. Get back up!
Life goes in for the kill. Hook, hook. He’s got the wingspan. Tears away my feathers. Leaves me flightless and gloveless. This fight is a juggling contest, but I am the pins. In any given second, I will fall.
Knees are starting to buckle. Right knee caves under the pressure of the gauntlet. It has got to let up soon, right?
Right?


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 About the author: Michael Verderber is a Texas playwright who specializes in writing plays and disjointed poetry.  He has three books - “[nonspace]: theatre off the stage” (Fountainhead P), “Twas the FLOP Before Xmas” and “Still Standing Still” (both Sarah Book P) and has been published by VAO Press, The Thing Itself Journal, tNY Press, and others. His plays Libertad and The Problem with Robot Dogs were both staged Off Broadway in New York City and he was the Aug 2014 winner of Playwright’s Express’s "Best Comedy" for his play "GPS" (tie for first) in LA. He may be reached at [email protected]

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