Friday, January 17, 2014

Kenneth Wolman


In Praise of Roberto Duran

In secret, in disbelief, fearing that saying so
would make it true, people whispered
that he'd turned coward:
pictures were on back pages everywhere
and pictures do not lie.
There were the upheld gloved hands,
los manos de piedras, and
his famous risible words: No Mas, No Mas.
"Enough.  I have no stomach for this.
Surrender."

Who remembers the name of his opponent?

In defeat, losing his monster's mask,
he became a force in a world of the misdefined.
Roberto Duran: vulnerability, frustration,
forever hands of stone, turned into
the Commendatore at Don Giovanni's
feast of undoing, come to warn us
to amend our lives, lose
the madness of inviting
punishment to be absorbed
because it's Good For Us.

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