A man passes the bread platter,
Having the courage not to take his share,
Listening with ferocity,
Swallowing pangs of saying nothing,
Despite the kicks in his groin
As she grates about his job;
This is how a man loves.
Out in the thorns
A bull struggles at the ropes;
He pulls and pulls,
Tearing the wood from the gnarled earth,
Breaching the hymen of the air,
His flanks of foam and minerals,
Smelling of sun.
This is royalty in the West,
In the seed and the spit that makes milk;
A man is not terrified of death
Because he knows his origin;
In fingers not made of clay
is clay made Adam;
His solemn life is din and youth
Under someone’s breath
that makes living stone.