Joey Cloudy online

“I Predict Pain”

-Clubber Lang 

I’d been training hard every day for a year 

and had bruised the ribs of Marines twice 

the size of the tall drink of water in the opposite  

corner.  Figured I’d punch a hole through this 

skinny kid from New York.  My corner man 

tells me to be careful “ the kids a golden gloves 

feather weight champion.”  I ain’t impressed. 

I’m five feet six inches tall and I only weigh in 

at one hundred and forty pounds.  But, I can bench 

press two hundred and eighty five pounds.   

this is  going to hurt him a lot  

more than it’s gonna hurt me. 

then we’re at it.  He’s fast tapping me 

with left jabs.  I can take it.  I don’t care. 

He’s using his reach to keep me from closing. 

Fuck it.  I charge him.  Slam my shoulder 

into him like a line backer tackling a wide receiver. 

I wrap him up and sling him into the ropes. 

Now that I got him in my office, I go to work 

pounding his gut.  But, this ain’t his first rodeo. 

The kids tougher than he looks.   

I guess that makes two of us.   

The kid dances off the ropes. 

He keeps jabbing me with that long left of his. 

I can take it.  But, this is a set up. 

He’s been watching my combos,  

measuring his reach with that left. 

I never see the right hook coming. 

After I woke up flat on my back 

wondering what the kid with the golden gloves  

was doing up there in all of that cerulean. 

1/10/2008 4:26:24 PM