Machismo

Whenever that type of wrong
can happen, it seems to happen.
Bombs or words or bodily
weaponry, whatever’s at hand

gets used when molecular,
falsified, ingrained pride
surges up and kills
any care within. Then

blooms a corpse-floral
fever, more often than 
occasionally, more obviously
than rarely, more normal

than exotic. It stinks
a cancered manhood song. It stinks
a dangled sadness and falling rage
that too often is used and then given

a pass to unpunished commonplace.
To draw it down is a job
and a calling.  To draw it down
is to slice it free of its tethered feeds

and let it sink wildly, flailing its power
at first, then slipping into something 
more feeble, then becoming still.
It is unknown yet what comes after that.