Speak, Muse, of the one who was the Greatest,
tell of how he stole glory from the gods,
punched the lights out of heaven and made us
all see stars. In this corner, show the odds
against the black man in America,
the beat-down, the score. Then give us Ali,
the boldest, the prettiest, the fighter
who slayed with Parkinson’s, the wild folly
who was the wisest soul of all. The world
stole a child’s bicycle; the champ, Alham-
dulillah, won the world in twenty years,
won through total surrender, through Islam.

“I done wrestled with an alligator,
I done tussled with a whale;
handcuffed lightning,
thrown thunder in jail;
only last week, I murdered a rock,
injured a stone, hospitalized a brick;
I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”

Sing, Muse, of this bout of pure poetry,
a book that broke the continental shelf,
the most scientific, the skillfullest,
the prettiest Clay that e’er made himself.