The Doctor –Exceprt from A Boxing Story
No more boxers for me.
Bar room brawlers,
that's another story.
They don't train
to destroy people.
No one pays to watch
a couple of drunks
demolish furniture.
Four and a half hours
inside this kid's head
and I'll fight anyone
who calls this sport.
Prize fighting?
You want to know
this kid's prize?
Bifrontal craniotomy,
three subdural hematomas,
possible embolisms,
possible skull fracture,
total left hemiplegia.
Let me translate.
If he ever wakes up
half life in the cabbage patch,
maybe complete loss
of his whole left side,
years of therapy
so he can shuffle,
drool and gawk about.
No more boxers for me.
I'm a neurosurgeon
not a bloody botanist.
by Garry Hyland
from After Atlantis
Thistledown Press, 1991.