Muscle Beach Gym, Venice Beach, L.A.
An old man on his back
on the weight bench
shoves iron into the sky.
The iron does not like being disturbed.
Its allegiance is to the earth
and it resents being pushed away.
Every chance it gets it races home.
The iron never relaxes
until it is allowed to rest,
embarrassed by being hoisted
in a frail human hand.
But the bony hand remembers
its repeated defeats of the iron,
as an aged champion recalls
the bouts of his youth
through aches and scars.
2019