You've trained a lot of world champions.
You worked with me for ten years.
I wasn't too good.
I was the best white collar fighter ever.
I wasn't brought up a fighter.
I listened to Mozart.
I ate caviar.
When I broke my nose I wouldn't let
the plastic surgeon clean
out the cartilage.
I told him I planned to break it again.
You always said,
"Davy got a lot of heart."
I felt like I was a Panamanian.
I bought gold chains
and fronts for my teeth.
There's nothing you can do about talent.
It's there or it's not.
Heart is a prediction.
It can fall short of its own beats
perching towards a Crise de Coeur.
It can show up like a giant EEG,
beating out its own
graphics like a squid fighting to squirt
its ink across a major poem.
David Lawrence's poetry has appeared in many publications, including The Adirondack Review, Carolina Quarterly, Midwest Poetry Review, Minnesota Review, North American Review, Poetry Bay, Poetry Motel, and 13thWR among others. His chapbook collections include Blame It On Scientists and Dementia Pugilistica. He has been a boxer, an actor, and a model. He resides in New York City.