Бой с тенью. Shadow Box. Зак Муча

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      fanaticism and isolation.

      The death instructions typed by minimum-

      wage wet work ops codexing Craigslist

      ads – the communication lines running

      again just like JFK and Cuba,

      Sam Giancana frying peppers and

      eggs in his basement. These same people got

      Liston to throw the second fight, the one

      he explained to his wife, saying, «Things happen…»

      *

      Those off-season mornings on the golf course

      were not for bragging rights. They knew he would

      haul the shadow, like boys do, terror and

      driven pride intertwined. Even as the

      best walk-on in the world he looked like an

      awkward teenager, disproportionate

      to his bat, to his teammates, too lanky for

      the uniform and for the park itself.

      Every camera caught the haunting

      whereas Ruth’s ghost was the lack of.

      Every step, his shadow slipped from his heel.

      *

      During Pee-Wee League night games outfielders

      danced their shadows, testing for consistency

      and reliability, fallow and

      oblivious of the meditation

      men say they find in the sport. A boy flinches

      at the pep talk pat-on-the-back after

      two strike outs, a walk, a dropped grounder and

      shrugs it away though the flinch and the shrug

      stay embedded in the muscle long after

      the best players become mulleted glue-

      sniffers by high school, throwing empty beer

      bottles at cop cars and lunch room windows.

      In Boston, Cleveland, and New York

      fans dropped from the bleachers to attack him

      with dad hanging from the skull’s chain-link fence

      and screaming like an ape, Jimmy Piersall

      dissociated whole seasons of his

      career to wake up late August, howling

      at a hotel room that looked

      just like every other.