The Knockout, by Tricia Marcella Cimera

Dempsey and Firpo, by George Bellows (b. USA), 1924.

The Knockout

There was this woman
at the fight.  You can’t see
her in photographs or in
that famous painting of
Dempsey falling
through the ring either --
but she was there.
It wasn’t his wife.
She wore a little fox
stole that he’d bought her
and a pink cloche hat
over her white blonde hair,
what a knockout.
When he fell, she played
it real cool, didn’t cry
out or gasp or anything
Just murmured Jack, Jack
in her low sweet voice.
Yes, he was a brute --
but she loved him anyway.

Tricia Marcella Cimera

This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.

Tricia Marcella Cimera will forever be an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places: Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere.  She has a micro collection of water-themed poems called THE SEA AND A RIVER on the Origami Poems Project website.  Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland).  She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox.

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