(“Saloon-keeper Tom Sharkey, retired heavyweight contender, is doing some fancy footwork in avoiding the current NYC ban on boxing by awarding ‘membership’ to every fighter he books for his Athletic Club brawls in his Lincoln Square cellar.”—The New York Times, 1909)

The kid comes down Sharkey’s stairs slapping
Snow off his great-coat, the threadbare elbows
Sporting ragtag patches cut from the hem.
He’s got a fresh shiner from one of the 3 other
Smokers he’s already worked tonight & a few
Random welts starting to fade. He weaves his way

Through the crowd, nods to Sharkey, unlocks
The Stay Out door, & flicks the wall switch
Before closing the door behind him. He hangs
His coat on a hook near the speed bag, & turns
It into a blur with a flurry of lefts & rights. He
Steps out of his trousers, reties his trunks & slips

A fold of 1’s into an envelope: 15 of them,
5 bucks a win. He sticks it under the mattress
He falls down on & closes his eyes for no more
Than a 10-count. Up on his feet, peeling off
His tee shirt sopped in sweat & spattered with
Someone else’s blood, he rubs his arms & yanks 

A clean tee shirt on as he leaves the only room
Sharkey rents: half the kid’s take per week.
A dime for each piece of skinny-wood he burns
In the potbelly. 2 dimes for a hot bath upstairs.
Free beer if Sharkey goes out on the town. Sneaked
Meals from the cook, Bernie, who calls the kid

Champ and takes his break at 10 o’clock, in time
To see the kid do his stuff. The main room’s filthy:
6 rows of metal chairs tight against a 9’ x 9’ ring
Strung with braided clothesline covered in black
Tape. 10 100-watt clear bulbs hang limp on their
Bare wires, sawdust wet on the concrete floor,

The potbelly’s stovepipe jammed through the broken
Glass of an overhead window nailed shut & painted
Brown, an open drain in a far corner: Sharkey’s “Please
Flush” sign a ten-year-old bad joke, stale beer sticky
Underfoot, cigar smoke & old men with nowhere
To go. The kid’s heading for the ring, lifting 2 rolls 

Of waxed-gauze from their pegs & 2 hollow stubs
Of hose to support his closed fists. He wraps his hands
As though they are already bleeding, round and round,
Flexing his fingers as the knuckles grow padded and tight:
The only gloves Sharkey allows. Just 18, the kid’s in his
4th season, & his pale Irish grin, riding above thick shoulders,

Is clean except for some hack doctor’s stitch marks
Under the left cheekbone. He climbs through the ropes &
Sits on the stool, fondling his mouthpiece, & studies
The empty stool across the ring, wondering who it will be,
& now there’s Harris stepping through the ropes, his
Bare knuckles showing through the gauze: a leftover

Wrap-job from his earlier fight down the block
Somewhere. Getting too old for this stuff, 37, 38,
Starting to lose his edge. It’ll be okay, thinks
The kid. He decked Harris in minute 6 last night
At Ramsey’s & he’s got no defense left, just a pecking
Jab & a giveaway right that opens him up for rib shots

That put him down & a jelly belly to keep him down.
Sharkey’s playing ref again, calling them to the center
Of the ring: No gouging, kneeing, biting, wrestling, butting,
Hitting low, no clock. You want out, you stay down for 10.
Go.

Ontario Review #57