a dream punch(whispers)in velvet static)  
                    —the ring is (not) a ring  
but a looping lullaby of  
  (blood+waltz)    &  catgut halos      shaped  
     like tomorrow’s shadow  
  
he speaks// with  
         /fists(  
            not mouths  
          & not fists) either  
  
             only those    little  
                 starlings  
     trapped in muscle /breathing
  
   || when he moves  
    it is not a dance but  
             the unwrinkling
             of time’s suit  

see?  
   sweat glints like  
        tiny gods  
           (shivering)  
       on the ropes—  

he jabs  
            (you)  
     //but through you—  
             like  
a film of a bird  
     passing through  
             a mirror  

and i hear—  
          music        where he  
                    ducked  
       (flutes in his knees  
                hymns in the knuckles)

((who said war  
      couldn’t wear  
             silk?))

                  —somewhere his mother’s  
                        voice calls  
                              through a referee’s  
                                     fingers  
           “raymond”  

                      the way  
              a Sunday morning  
        breaks its own silence—  

but  
he is (already)  
                gone  
into that punch  
                like a  
paper moon  
folding  
           inward—  

                      .         .           .

(he never lost.  
  he just  
   became  
      echo).