Leslie Williams

The Ring

A cloudless snowfall outside the boxing gym.

Red gloves ready in periphery. Protect your face.

Give it your all. The problem is the wish

to be better than we are. The problem is the failures

on repeat, winter afternoons I always enter

late: starting cold, hovering inside the ropes

with untold repetitions of now and at the hour

of our death, which makes me think of chariots

or a stony beach, stepping into waves when all I want

to talk about is grief, searching every face

for someone with a burning heart till I’m KOed,

struck bell resounding behind my head, lorded over

by victorious opponents—ocean, mirror, lover—

all within the wheel of sorrow’s gilded spokes. 

Leslie Williams’ most recent of three poetry collections is Matters for You Alone (Slant Books, 2024), just longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Awards. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Image, Verse Daily, Kenyon Review, America, and elsewhere. Honors include the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Winner Award.