A million-armed hug rows into a convenience store,
     making off with what two thugs concede to misbelief,
     that a vagrant embrace might take from them all they make
     haste to save, instead of themselves, the thugs waste no time
     placing their trust in something unfamiliar, raping
     comfort, cluttered postures of their machismo fading
     in the midnight market, wondering what sold out their
     darkness, personæ purchased with no foresight, humid
     light sweating off their fight, their bite bested by this grip
     getting too tough to shake off, but love is a client
     impervious to its own defiance, not buying
     the set-up, its touch has been sent to annihilate
     this insidious misconception killing those men,
     to teach them that real strength does not contend with such feats
     of varnished cowardice, that the street itself can tell
     the difference between them, that the reputations
     of these thugs are an invention, thin lies papering
     the patched walls of their tenement minds, pain evicting
     from their convenience all kinds, not only those two, those
     thugs who refuse to tune in to the truth, that they, too,
     are human; hugging men, love robs from them their needing.