Why A Wrestler Will Beat A Boxer Every Time

Because my instinct is to punch

to keep arm’s length

while yours is to hug close

which for a boxer means safety

and for a wrestler means takedown.

I have no technique for body

slams, no low center of gravity,

my strength is my arms shoulders

wrists knuckles, my strength in my

fearless slams against a wall. See—

even there—I am too careful

with my skeleton to have ever sought

a singlet, a blue plastic mat, and

I use walls instead, ropes, gloves.

But I let you tackle me, buck-eyed

in Santa Monica ferris wheel lights

in front of the crash of ocean that

slowly, slowly laps away stone

mountains, even though the first

sideways takedown whiplashed

my neck and I never learned

how to fall, because somehow

I knew how you’d hold me

against your heart

(after the fourth time)

and how I’d let you.