Elli had been on every circuit, in various costumes. Always a heel.
She was never above choking, taking people's eyes out, anything.
She'd do it for free outside the ring if you were patient.
She'd brought down most of the biggest faces there'd ever been,
although a few succumbed to early injury instead, or drugs.
But she didn't mind sharing her victories with the drugs.
There was only one opponent she missed, though, and he wasn't a professional.
Crowds got distracted by the flashy lightning, but he was always a farmer at heart,
and that's what he went back to when he had the chance.
She was surprised to miss him, with his roaring and grunting and unbeautiful grappling,
but she did. He couldn't beat her,
but he was the only one in centuries who had come close.
He was even more surprised that he missed her too.
So when her travels took her past his farm
when she was disguised as one wrestler or another,
after the arena was closed down for the night--she'd come out to his barn.
And they'd wrestle again.
None of the faces she wore in the ring ever felt right with him.
For him she was just Elli, inevitable and wizened, always herself.
He didn't strip down to trunks or fancy tight trousers, either.
That was never his style. Her in a housedress,
her grey hair straggling around her, him in overalls,
they would grapple. Clinch. Fall back. Grapple again.
It had a poetry to it, but a very straightforward poetry.