Somewhere, it was winter. Stars were lost

Above the mottled, slate-hard clouds. The streets

Were glazed with colorless lamplight. The air

Was weary cold, and smelled of apathy.

Somewhere it was January, or

Some time that felt like it. Beside the curbs

Were swept thin strands of snow, grey with the grime

And grit of city streets, like smoke condensed

To almost solid slush and crusty salt.

Somewhere it was almost dawn. For most,

Night with her phantasms would yet hold sway

An hour or more. Until the coffee smell.

Until amnesiac stirring of the sheets.

Until impatient morning, seeping through

The sky like water through a paper towel,

To prod them to the scramble and the rush.

Till then, the streets were nearly empty. Here

The rumble of a lonely early bus.

There the swelling scent of bakery warmth.

And there a wandering insomniac

Crossing the street against the traffic light

That shouted orders to an empty world

And flashed ruby and emerald down upon

The silent crossroads. Shane, wondering, went

Down sidewalks once familiar, now made strange

By their familiarity. The heights

Of black brick and grey iron seemed to shy

Away from looming over him. The bare

Trees hibernating looked too small, as does

Your school, when you revisit decades hence.

The city he had known for riot of noise

Seemed smaller in its innocence of sleep,

Seemed younger, as if Shane had grown, and it

Had stayed a child. All was the same, only

His self had changed. There was the diner where

He would have pancakes and fried steak against

His trainer's orders. Now he hungered not.

There the dim tavern where he once caroused

His every victory. He thirsted not.

Here was the corner where he once had crouched,

Clutching around his shoulders the thin coat

That already the rain had soaked, waiting

For proof that though he was only a boy,

And a poor one at that, who could not pay,

He had more than enough resolve to learn

A fighter's trade. Yet now he felt no cold

For all that he wore only boxing shorts.

At that last thought, Shane suddenly noticed

The officer bearing down on him. Shane

Found reflexes within his mind leaping

For some excuse, no matter how slender,

But the policeman did not even blink.

He passed barely a foot before Shane's face

And gave no least sign that he had seen him.

Shane stood, jaw slack, in shock. The officer

Continued his patrol, oblivious.

Shane frowned in thought, then with new purpose he

Strode swiftly down a sidestreet, searching. At

The corner was a tiny donut shop.

Just open, empty, no customers yet.

He shoved open the door, and loudly said

“Give me a chocolate donut!" The clerk raised

Her chin not from her fist, nor her elbow

From the counter. “I want every donut

In this shop!" Shane cried. She did not react.

“Put up your hands, and empty out the cash!

This is a robbery!" Shane raised his fists.

The donut seller scratched her neck and yawned,

Glanced at the clock, then frowned. Shane left the shop.

He wandered like a drunken man toward

The river. On the apex of the bridge

He leaned against a suspension cable

And laughed bitterly. “What did I expect?

Why look, among the living, for the dead?

If ever I believed you, Varr, I do

Believe you now. I am a ghost indeed.

And who can see, or hear, or touch me now?

How shall I now return, to keep my word?

How can I stand with my brother warriors?

How, even, could I find the woman I

Have glimpsed in missing instincts, memories

Unclear, and through the door's teasing echo?

Her name is Barbara. I remember,

I think, that much. But what was she to me?

Where is she? Does she even mean herself,

Or is she some metaphorical naught?

Even could I be heard, I cannot go

In search with nothing more than 'Barbara.'"

Shane stared into the ice-sealed river. “Well,

This is not the first time that I have found

Myself purposeless in a stranger's world.

Let me seek out whatever ghosts seek out,

And when I find it, then choose what to do."

Guided only by whim and gentle breeze,

He turned back to the city, and wandered

Through streets he did not try to recognize.

Beneath the paling streetlamps, a milk van

Growled past. Early commuters staggered to

Their trains. In windows blinds creaked open, and

Among them walked the ghost of a boxer,

Looking for nothing, and at everything.

He walked aimlessly, at his leisure. He

Examined any thing he noticed with

The fascination of an infant who

Sees everything for the first time. The whole

City was his to discover, and he

Was in no hurry to discover it.

Until, out of the corner of his eye,

Shane saw something that pricked his mind with more

Than memory of memory that he

Could not take with him. This ran down his neck

Like ice water. An oldwife might have said

That somebody had walked over his grave.

Shane turned in mid-stride, staring. When his eye

Again caught the squat building, he felt more

Then coldness down his back. Just looking felt

Like straining breathless past the Lady's seal,

But nothing seemed to bar his way. He went

Shouldering through the shivering deja vu

That he heard teasing him from up ahead.

The sign above the door said 'Arena.'

It opened for him. He pushed inward through

A fog of heavy breath and vertigo

That hung round him like drunkenness and sleep.

The stadium was empty, silent, dark,

With that characteristic emptiness

Of places built to fill with light and sound,

With throngs and noise of throngs. The darkness here

Was less than false dawn, save for one

Sole shaft of light that lit the boxing ring.

And there, beneath the darker semi-dark

Of the unpopulous arena, Shane

Stood like a statue, sweating, for he saw,

Like a jigsaw puzzle flung on the air

To tumble cataractlike, then to splash,

A brightly colored cardboard waterfall,

Soft-rattling the sighs of autumn leaves,

Yet, coincidence too coincident

To be coincidence, every last piece

Lands perfectly beside its mate and match,

The picture interlocks entirely,

And the puzzle is solved, just so he saw

His last seconds alive play out again,

His last breaths flash before his eyes, his ears,

His nose, his nerve endings, his balance-sense,

His last memory on the earth, forgot

Till he walked earth again. He saw flashbulbs

In time to blows that rocked his bones. He heard

A strong bell sound the moment the firm shock

Of his fist making solid contact ran

Up his bicep. He felt the sudden blow

Of treachery at the base of his skull

That snapped his neck back, drove him to his knees,

Made vision swim and time run syrup-slow,

Made faces one by one float up at him:

The referee, awash in rage surprised,

His foe, gloating and spiteful, upside down,

And at the ropes, his name upon her lips,

Barbara, shaken to her very heart,

Barbara, tears unnoticed in her eyes,

Barbara, his wife, now his widow. Shane

Felt something rise behind his throat that felt

Like it might have grown up to be 'Goodbye,'

But ere it could, he found he had no breath

And then the blackness took him. Memory

Lost hold, and the next thing the boxer knew

He was running, he knew not where, nor whence,

With sweat and tears and blood upon his face.

To stumble backward up the stairs two at

A time came easier than breathing. Shane

Reached blindly for the door handle. The ring

Of accidental, gladiatorial

Sacrifice seemed to float toward him. To flinch

And flee was reflex. In the time it took

To draw and spend three bellows-bursting breaths

His memory, passive glutton, had been lit

In places long disused and atrophied,

Like upper rooms for generations filled

With nothing but dust cloths and darkness, now

The cloths flung back, the shutters opened wide,

The dust billowed aside. So pictures lit

All inescapably upon his brain,

And with each came a blossom of fresh pain

Its roots around his heart, its stem crowding

Against his laboring lungs, its leaves choking

His arid mouth, its petals unfolding

Away from one more lost lamented scene

He had not known was missing until now;

The waking in her arms, the only light

Pale azure through the breeze-rattle of blinds

In a high brownstone window, the warm grass,

The slowly-melting taste of strawberry

And chocolate off the spoon she held out,

The blossom-scented vernal equinox

Of long festival afternoon in park

Lawns shaded by the sleeping linden boughs,

The slow itch of the tiny salt crystals

Forming upon his chest, where the tears dried

Now that she slept and wept no more, her hair

Entwined around his fingers and the scent

Of it entwined around his face, the dark

Their only blanket, save eachother, and

The hope that fed them when they had no food,

Sheltered them when cold family spurned her,

Fueled them when every road was a dead end,

And made a bare attic the kind of home

A Champion could call his palace. Shane

Was heaving like a broken racehorse when

He stumbled back against a cold brick wall.

Somewhere it was near enough to dawn

That the streetlights were powerless. Shane drew

A long and shuddering breath. “I am alone,

And more alone to know how once I was

Not alone. I know why they called the dead

Lost souls. What soul has been more lost than I?

Would that I could have stayed, and fought, and died

With honor, and forget all else. But no.

My Barbara deserved remembering,

Even if to remember is to ache.

The little girl deserved her rescuing,

And if my half-damnation was the price,

Well, it is paid and she is rescued. But

How much I wish that all I had to face

Were infinite ash-zombies, treacherous

Witchfolk, and a beast higher than the hills

All made of fire and black malevolence!

That would have been enough." He shook his head

And blinked sluggishly. In his fit he'd run

To regions of the city that in life

He had not known. He stood in the shadow

Of stone buildings, of long arcades, of signs

Proclaiming wealthy donors long deceased.

And from the rolling mall, chilled with silver

And sapphire dew, he heard a voice, like one

Who tastes a speech before he serves it up,

Who practices his cadences, and tests

The often tested roll of word on word.

The boxer rose, and looked about. The grass

Was unpopulated by any man,

Nor did the voice come from open window.

Confused and curious, Shane followed, out

Of the cold college grounds, through a thicket,

Of morning glory and of bittersweet.

Through a gap in a chain link fence, he found

Smoother lawn still, and rows of silent trees,

Who would, at sun's arrival, shade the long

Still ranks of gravestones sleeping on the hills.

There in amongst the graves stood the speaker.

Knowing he would be neither seen nor heard

Shane stayed a moment, idly listening.