cock-fight

Now my man is watching a cock-fight

and begins to lose,

quiet and reverent as any man

Under such a heavenly vulgar heat.

The cocks’ eyes are the first

allowed

to savor the abundance.

For a second, they still

and cast on him, pupils broadening,

in possible recognition of their own,

or like familiarizing

themselves to his body.

My man does not lament.

The brothers drizzle

spit and pesos over the cocks,

a terrible haze slashing across each face.

My man only stops to study

the blood crests under his fingernails,

so delectable like bread,

like money divulged.

Instructions are unnecessary here,

but the lesson is to take from

each other’s carnage.

Red flabs slung between hand and hand,

Later collected in metal buckets.

Only after the animals lay low,

one more naked than the other.