Some Things You Can't Understand by Punching Harder

I blushed like I had already been hit when she slipped that cotton baton 
into my pocket between bells, though why was I ashamed our bodies emptied and refilled 

without breaking a bone? I rinsed blood from my hands and Coach parted the ropes. 
Make him forget what you are. We never sparred the boys—

he looked at me like the rib we had stolen to make ourselves breathe was between my eyes.
then hit so hard I heard a sound like fishing hooks in a drawstring bag 

(no one really sees stars glittering above them, the dark begins at the ankles, then zips up)—
he waited to say I can’t hit a girl until I was already on the ground in my own bright circle.

What ails you, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back?

Most of the boys had seen a body bleed almost everywhere a body could 
and never did I see them wince: not at the tooth wedged into the mat, 

or the face shifted into a Picasso painting, or a pupil pummeled red.
Still, I’ve never seen a fight stopped quick as the moment I forgot 

God returned the Red Sea only to part it again and again.
What are the rules for that?

Raisa Tolchinsky hails from Chicago and is currently an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Virginia. Her poems, essays, stories, and interviews have appeared in Kenyon Review, Muzzle Magazine, December, and elsewhere. You can find more of her work at www.raisatolchinsky.com.