Lynn McGee
Crush, 5
I’m leaning back against the ropes
and the mat is blue leather, my hands deep
in red gloves, swollen tongues. Punching bags
swing like giant capsules; white on top, black
on bottom. There’s a row of hanging lights,
and beneath them, a row of stars that hatch
across the glossy floor. I’m leaning back
against the ropes, heart hammering
in the call-and-response that keeps my pulse
sprinting like a rabbit across a football field.
I’m calm as that field, and lean back
against the push of braided cable, a lot
of spring in its wrap. I blame you
for how good that feels.
Lynn McGee is the author of Tracks (Broadstone Books, 2019) and Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016), as well as two award-winning poetry chapbooks, Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press, 1996). Here poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, Ontario Review, Phoebe, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sun Magazine, and The New Guard, among other journals, as well as in the anthology Stonewall’s Legacy (Local Gems Press, 2019), edited by With José Pelauz, McGee wrote the children’s book Starting Over in Sunset Park (Tilbury House Publishers, 2020). She serves on the advisory board of the Hudson Valley Writers Center and co-curates the Lunar Walk Poetry Series with Gerry LaFemina and Madeleine Barnes. Online at lynnmcgee.com.
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