Poetry Friday - Gloved

I found this poem on the May Day Poetry Project blog, a site where poets from Canada and beyond publish poems during the month of May. They've done it for five years in a row so far, and I'm hoping they'll do it again this year. Here's the link, if you're interested in checking out their site. Today's poem was one of the ones submitted on May 1st of 2009, and it's by a poet named Kerry.


gloved


punch deep, hook fingers
into dark, dead-end of glove
braced in your coach’s belly –
soft, slow dig to the gut
as she cinches laces
around forearms

tied and taped, you can’t pat
sweat from your face,
sweep hair from eyes

gloves turn hands dumb,
useless except for hammering
nose flush with cheekbone
testing for hollow
behind ribs

between rounds you beg
to have water
poured into your mouth,
tip your head back
and swallow