The screen blinks and hums,
Mimicking the buzz of fluorescent lights,
As the crowd leans in, pulsing, expectant,
The cursor strobes, daring me,
Breathe.
Don’t wait: find an opening,
The coaches pace;
Keep those feet moving. Make them feel you.
Anxious for the first word, first shot.

The crowd chants, “Go RJ!”
Wrestlers, hoods up, punch at shadows,
Anticipating sprawls,
Staring at empty mats,
Seconds from the warning trill,
Exploding as the whistle pierces the air.
I stop circling and face my opponent,
An empty back-lit square.

I wrestle the lines,
Cut and revise,
A script not quite there yet,
The first stanza of a poem,
Still circling my opponent,
Searching for a new angle,
Fighting for a grip, a snap-down,
This word, not that one,
No, Yes, Maybe…
A metaphor catches!
It holds.

Sprawling to stay inside the circle,
Doubts drag me down
Into the red zone—the one-meter band.
I push back.
Don’t play too close to the edge,
Strike, before the whistle blows
Before the ref shouts, ZONE!

I center myself—
Pinning words to the page.
I listen but no whistle is called,
To break up the brawl on the screen.
So, I fight back, crack them open,
Scrape them clean.
Sentences explode filling the gaps.

Now, back arched, I avoid the pin.
I turn, shift the weight and…
A hand hits the mat—
One,
Two,
Three.
The match is called. The ruling is in.
The decision: mine.

Hands strike the keys,
Clack, clack…the payoff!
Verbs in place!
Ideas now words, sentences.
I can breathe.
And I can continue.
For now.
Until the next bell sounds.

***

Celeste DeSario writes to make sense of her world. Celeste enjoys sports as a spectator, a fan, a cheerleader. Celeste’s poetry recently appeared in The New Verse News and a new poem is appearing in the Spring 2026 issue of The Changing Times.