The other day
in the park
Tomo and I saw a shadow boxer.

We laughed.
To be honest,
he did look pretty damn silly,
bobbing and weaving through nothing,
jabbing, sticking and hooking at nothing,
but even then,
laughing,
I saw.

The enemy he flails at,
I see every day.
I chase at its heels on the track
as it rushes invisibly ahead
like the "ghost car"
in one of those dumb racing games
that I can never catch.

As I swim
my arms ache,
my lungs burn,
and it slides through the chlorinated murk
beneath me, just ahead, like a shark
that I can never catch.

I'll never reach it,
this shadow I'm chasing,
just as his punches will never land.
(Unless he screws up
and breaks his knuckles
on a brick wall—
KERACK!
sorry, I digress.)

But that's okay…
catching it,
punching it in its stupid face,
(maybe taking its wallet)…
That's not the point,
is it?

And who knows,
maybe
just maybe
because we always chase it,
maybe we've already got it.