I have to sketch these scallions on this windowsill
before a stormwind comes & scatters them on the landing,
blows their plastic cradle down the stairwell,
& spills their scallion-scented water which will pool,
shrink, & evaporate without witness. I have to sketch
the faces of the middleweights slowly disappearing
from the cup’s cheap print & the Independence
Day of their Vegas fight before they wear away to white.
I have to sketch the ghost of the overpriced
beer that must have once been its body & blood,
& the underpaid hand of the kiosk-keeper who pulled
down on a lever until foam rose above the lip.
I have to sketch my friend J. spilling some as he stood,
on recoil & reflex, at the thud of a Canelo hook
to Cotto’s guts; then sketch J. in his kitchen six
months later with his elbows on the island
(boxing paused) hearing out the saga of his friend—
a friend without a plastic cup to piss in.
How he poured a Corona into his Canelo-Cotto chalice
& told me “keep it.” How its yellow crown
has worn down to an abstract sun since then.
I have to sketch that sun against my mother’s grave-
sized patch of blackberries & scallions
beside the driveway, her grass oasis in the gravel,
where she tears open a plastic sack of soil & scatters it
like a baptism. I have to sketch the latticework
of parkways I travel back to her, oak-lined roads that lace
the outskirts; sketch the kiss on each cheek & the shovel
she hands me, the spade & threadbare gloves she shares
so that I may catch metal under tangled roots & pull.