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This poem is taken from PN Review 223, Volume 41 Number 5, May - June 2015.

‘The Boxer’ Michael Farrell
The boxer has great hair, a great beard, great ink
jobs down both arms. He likes to pull up his
shirt when he’s with his friends: just above the nipples
He doesn’t go blackberry picking on weekends; he doesn’t sit
on the bridge looking at a ladybird on his thigh
thinking ‘Gee, I should do this every day’. Everything he
does he does every day. He has married the same
woman four times and divorced her twice. He is everyone’s
kind of Mary Jane. After three laps of the city
and one of the river he really needs a shot
of something. His hair is browner than a museum and
curlier than a zoo. He’s saving up to go somewhere
poverty stricken to shoot a music video and learn to
laugh again. He writes the song at the punching bag
At lunch with the Pope on Thursday he said ‘Fuck’
three times and still feels embarrassed about it. ‘Lucky it
...


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