espnW will publish a bi-weekly poem on Sundays. This week, Shayla Lawson pens a tribute to The Champ: Muhammad Ali.
Whose fist rings out in the shape
of Africa? A right-handed continent.
A bass-clef hook. Superman
don't need no seat
belt, our hero sings out to a comic
book landscape; KAPOW
just the flap of his cape in flight. Muhammad
may have climbed to be The Champion
but, it isn't the mountain that wears
you out, it's the pebble in your shoe. Funny,
when the world doesn't know what to do
with a battle, it makes him a dancer;
when the world doesn't know what to do
with a canvas, it crowns him king. Only
The Greatest could contain
him: his poet, his painter--his own
masterpiece. Each pair of K.O.'d
eyelids, a brushstroke signed in flesh.
Whose fists brought down a heavy
-hearted century? A flash-bulb beauty;
a human swift of foot. He pummels
into flame more galvanized than golden
gloves. Ali came to save the way.
A rumble in the clouds; sometimes
it's only through the clay
the Earth can recognize the stars.
Shayla Lawson is the author of three poetry collections: A Speed Education in Human Being (Sawyer House Press, 2013), PANTONE (MIEL Books, 2016), and the forthcoming I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean (Saturnalia Books, 2018). She is a member of the Affrilachian Poets.