Heteromasculinity

My friend grilled a cow heart once,

nice and slow over steaming charcoals

while beer bottles leaned on ice

and we discussed how easily

women seem to italicize the world.

This was still many summers

before smartphones. We were living

in a rot-tiled shack crowded

with college boys like the ones

who now ditch my classes and refuse

to speak ill of their fathers.

He said he got it from an uncle

who warned it might come out sour—

toss on some chicken just in case.

But after all those textbooks

we strained to open amidst bottles 

we couldn’t leave shut,

by the end we had nothing left

save that skull-sized knot of muscle

shushing the coals like rain.

None of us could believe

how much it tasted like steak,

a kind of communion for the fork. 

Later, we heard claws—

a possum pursuing the leftovers,

unfazed by our shouting,

and feared for the girls next door

who often sunbathed within

sight of our windows. One of us

took a pellet gun. Another, a hammer.

I carried the tin birthday sword 

my mother ordered for my birthday,

which arrived a week after

her heart stalled. Twenty years later,

the tip still wears the stain.