The camera flashes felt like stars as I plunged  
headlong through the table. Two seconds 
from ladder to ring. The wood splintered; 
a metal bar caught my face. That’s the work.  
He grabbed at the belt from the top of the rungs  
and I spat out my teeth in my hands. 

Julian Day lives in Winnipeg. He is the author of two chapbooks, Orbits (Model Press, 2023) and Late Summer Flowers (Anstruther Press, 2021).