L'amore è eterno, finche dura
Turns out he is a sweet enough guy
and his Parkinson’s not as bad as they say.
Told me he heard of me — we had
the same draft board back in Houston
in the Sixties when he was Cassius Clay.
George, he said, gettin’ old is a bitch.
Best thing to do, get back in the ring,
come out of hiding, give and take a punch.
That way, least you go down fighting.
I saw my own mother, captive
gorilla in the humid luminescence
of the pit at the zoo.
Some sort of fight was going on.
she was cowering under a chlorinated
waterfall, wrists to her ears, red-eyed.
Punks among us on the public concourse
taunted my father. He rampaged
round the jungle of house plants,
Prehensile feet slipping on patio slabs,
slamming into the steel door.