3

and midnight...

midnight’s boxer

midnight’s boxer he has become

that the ghosts from the ‘tents’ of long-ago pay homage

memories that fill a boardinghouse room

busted knuckles soothed endlessly with goanna oil

and on the soul, scars that can’t

stories in his eyes

could have been an olympian

try and extract the truth from his fists,

although

he wouldn’t know how to sink in the boot

a tender honour picked up off the battlefields of assimilation

midnight’s boxer he has become

fifty-seven-year-old gas tank that can’t see empty

blackened skin like blackening memory

and hard

plain hard,

the urecognised pillar of his mob

and

after midnight has gone

way gone

and his time is over

will he be missed

and his triumphs mentioned,

midnight’s boxer he has become