Never fails:
at some point
boys gathered together
will tell each other
warrior tales.

It makes them so drunk
they offer each other
rogue proclamations and vows.

They say:
if my enemy’s head
were made from memory foam,
I would make my best impression
by punching him. And after 
he went lights out, after I rocked him
to sleep, I would lie pillowed upon it.
That would be sweet.

They say:
this one time
I was a hawk, I spotted my enemy
from too far away even for a hawk
and I fell out of the cloud upon him
and though he was steel himself
I dragged him into sparks,
and after I did not feed on the scraps
but left them to rust, 
and that was sweet.

They say:
one of these hours
I will make an enemy 
and break an enemy.
I will be an enemy
and we will be
silver and gold, and metallic 
though we are we will still bleed.
All of us will bleed.  Then I will 
drink my enemy’s blood and refill,
and it will be sweet.

They know enough already
to have started seeking
the sweet
in the sour world ahead;
with any luck,
they’ll learn soon and
with minimal harm
that a bruised head is a lousy pillow,
that blood tastes like copper
and to grow up is
to stop confusing it
with nectar.