BOXED IN

For years he had been trying to fight out of his corner. A wizened tree bent nearly double atop some west-facing cliff. Tempests stormed in all hours. The ropes lashed back of his knees, both bum shoulders. The whiff of deflated leather bruised his every thread, rendered the world rank as a pond’s top. Between rounds, the sweat-wet padding was like a wave breaking over him, Defoe’s lighthouse cowl, and the head back slap-bang of nitrous was just a kid’s fortune mis-read.