Out On Your Feet Poem by Leo Yankevich

You have just taken the umpteenth blow
to whatever cheekbones you have left.

Your nose now is an orphaned limb
that hangs from bloody snot and gristle.

Your teeth are shards of broken glass
between the ridges of your gums.

Your mind is pig-shit, scrambled eggs,
and your thoughts are the intervals

in the longest count since Dempsey
stood over Tunney in Soldier Field.

And yet you still stand there and smile
at the birth and death of sudden stars,

an afterlife so imminent,
hoping the ref won't stop the fight.