He’s a fighter. He was then and he is now.

The grime of the sooty ring coated his face,

when he’d get knocked down, but he’d refuse to stay there.

His card read “0 KO” until the last fight, a bad one.

“I want our daughter to grow up with a father, Bill.”

He hung his gloves up and let the years pass.

Brain tumor, malignant, they said.

Or no, a stroke. Maybe. Maybe an aneurysm, tough to tell.

Another MRI, another biopsy, who knows what it is.

He refuses to surrender, not after 53 hard-fought years.

His body, swift, strong, statuesque, once.

Now, atrophied, and disobedient.

His left leg collapses under the weight of gravity and his smile droops.

He cries as he looks into the passing shiny orbs on the ceiling.

He stares at his reflection, interrupted by the grit-spackled tiles

lining the hallway leading to the CT room.

He reaches out to the side of the stretcher.

His arm is marble-heavy, it twitches and lifts off

in a winding trajectory before crashing down onto the bed.

Blind fury fills his gut, he wants to hit the wall.

He catches a glimpse of his wife’s auburn hair,

he focuses on her freckles, he ignores the worry lines around her mouth,

the dark circles around her eyes.

She’s beautiful. She holds his hand. He relaxes.

A whimper comes from behind him.

He wonders what they told his daughter; does she understand?

She’s been afraid to speak to him.

“Turtle,” he calls her because she loved to hide as a kid.

He motions for her with his working arm.

She carefully positions herself at his feet.

His back aches worse than when he took

37 kidneys punches in a single round,

his head burns like it’s been doused in kerosene and set ablaze,

his right toes tingle and feel like

they’re being prickled by microscopic needles.

He looks up.

A spiraling, concentric sun dome

shines the morning into the hospital room.

The stained-glass panels scatter

bright, white light onto him,

like the spotlights that surrounded the ring.

The announcer would scream his name

when he’d step under the lights,

the crowd would go wild.

He wonders if heaven sits

on the other side of those windows.

A tap on his foot interrupts his thoughts.

“Don’t worry, dad,” says his turtledove.

“You’re a fighter.”