Wrestler’s Lament
“At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.”
— Czeslaw Milosz
I
Now that my wrestling days are over, I see they might as well
never have been, for what’s the difference between smoke
in the wind and the past? At least I have enough strength left
to call them delusions and go on breathing. I want to change
the name of air to ether and time to then. When I step
from one stone to the next on my way to the home for aging
wrestlers on the island of Utnapishtim where the nurses
are also baristas who serve espressos instead of pills,
I see that I slept awake inside the ring for all those
years when I was famous for my range of moves:
the cutter, the backbreaker, the stunner, the chokeslam, the pile-
driver, the facebuster. I weep recalling them and seeing them, too,
on film, as if they were real and I still young. Alas, they mean
nothing now and might as well never have been. Why do I think this?
you ask. Because when I tell the facts of my glory days to anyone
who’ll listen, never mind the mesomorphs who think they’re Gilgamesh
or Enkidu, they yawn and laugh. But I can see that they’re deluded,
too, and need to fight and risk their lives for as long as they can,
which is their blessing, just as it was also mine. So, I say nothing
in the end, catching myself too late again recalling other things
for which I was also known before I touched Humbaba’s fence
and fell, such joys as hunting for my bride in The Wood
of Morois and strangling the dragon therein, spying the backside
of God on Horeb, ripping Beowulf’s arm from off his body.
II
I sit beside an ancient tree and try myself before the beautiful judge
I call “my dove,” “my love,” “my executioner.” “So, how do you plea?”
she asks. “Guilty as charged,” I say, at which she nods with a killer
smile, then asks if I’d like to allocate my crime. “I believed a dream
was real,” I tell her. “Forgive my lies, if you would, sweetheart,
for all of them were real at the time.” “Anything more? she asks.
“You’ve heard this story before?” I say. “So many times,” she says,
rolling her eyes. “So many times. It’s the oldest plea there is,
which is why I never show mercy.” “I understand,” I say.
“It’s perfectly clear.” “Would you like to make a last wish?” she asks.
“I wish only to hear your sentence and to touch the bark and leaves
of this ancient tree so I can say that I was here, if only for myself,
like the girl who was stripped of her reasons by the puppet king,
like K who was granted a vision of you in disguise at your window
before he was dragged to his hole by your thugs for whom the words
justice, life, and mercy carry no meaning. Bless them, for they know
what they do in making Friday good and teaching me a final move.”