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.