After Fighting (More Blood Edit)

There was once you held me in your headlock when we might have been Madonna & Son - a Descent. But I reversed: lord, I reversed, and had my knee down on your neck raining blow upon blow, until you lopped a fist into my chest that stilled me a little while I boot-tapped the street for purchase, our comrades finally dragging us, still spitting, animal in articulation; nothing resolved. But, oh, tonight I'm cruising westward in starlight a straight path I'm making through olive groves, a rangy dog, jag-hipped, belly-low. I’m jowls, gums, sharp canines, outthrust my shoulders, wringing my big fist by my side. The grove pours out in a wide whorl of stars, the long dogjaw of Wadi Araba, Canaan, and you suckerpunched me, lord. But I reversed, oh, how I! No fighter, I would have taken your throat in my teeth and drawn up with my back. I’m pissy-sweat-smelling, like a cave, the tinfoil taste of blood in my mouth. Tonight I'd be human but oh-sweet-lord how I didn't relent. Tonight I dig my toes in, pushing the earth with my strides. The air hums like applause, stars double and treble. Tonight I could be Jacob Israel stumbling west from a whole pit of conquered Dominations.