Knockout

They say it's magic. When it lands
you feel the force of your whole body,
even the deeper organs, the dark fluids
that go untapped for decades, the tiny
pale microbes haunting the bone marrow,
the intricate patterns that devised
the bones of the feet, you feel them
finally coming together like so many
atoms of salt and water as they form
an ocean or a tear, for just an instant
before the hand comes back under the chin
in its ordinary defensive posture.

Philip Levine