Palazzo Massimo,
                                  National Museum of Rome

1.
Whatever invincible thoughts I had
storming that day toward the museum

were shattered once I saw the statue
of a young man, a boxer, about my size,

posed not as a victor pumping his fists
but a man still stunned by his defeat.

Seated on a stump, his shoulders slumped
along his sides, he leaned forward,

forearms braced across his knees,
his whole body reeking of exhaustion.

The face he held up was strange terrain,
with deep cuts marking

punches he’d taken. Even his bulging
ears were swollen. What looked

like brass knuckles strapped to his fists
now seemed a burden he couldn’t lift.

His dark hollow eyes
strained to look sadly up to his right,

as if after asking his god why?
he still waited for his reply.

2.
We battled our friends in military school,
because they wanted to toughen us up

so we’d have the right skills
when the time came.  Rather than thinking,

we’d react. But I was so afraid
as I death-gripped a pugil stick

that after being battered about the head
I felt relief when I slipped and

fell. Yet I never got
the next quick jab into my gut;

my friend—
held up. But, soon, surprise

burst like fireworks in his eyes
when I jabbed back, a bayonet savaging

his right thigh. I can’t explain
why my forearms started to shake,

or why, for a while, I couldn’t unclamp
that stick from my hands.

I knew, then, despite my win,
this wasn’t the way

to become any man
I wanted to become.

Mark Madigan is the author of Thump and other poems, a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press. A graduate of the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University, his work has previously appeared in The American Scholar, Poetry, Raleigh Review, Tar River Poetry, and other magazines.