Real Men

Real men don’t cry,
Don’t love,
Don’t value anything enough to suffer the pain of loss.

Real men don’t feel,
Aren’t afraid,
Never hurt enough to break down.

But he cried.
Black clad,
Bent over the mahogany edge.
He grasped the stone hands of the man who fathered him,
And he kissed his wax forehead.
His voice trembled,
Lips quivered.

But real men don’t cry,
Don’t love,
Don’t value anything enough to suffer the pain of loss.

Real men don’t feel,
Aren’t afraid,
Never hurt enough to break down.

But he cried.
He looked down at his blood stained shirt.
At the bundle
Clasped,
Hot and throbbing
Against his chest,
And at the woman
Drenched with sweat and strain
Smiling next to him.
And his voice trembled,
Lips quivered.

But real men don’t cry,
Don’t love,
Don’t value anything enough to suffer the pain of loss.

Real men don’t feel,
Aren’t afraid,
Never hurt enough to break down.

But he cried.
He looked into her blank stare,
And he tried to tell her that he loved her.
He grasped her knotted hands,
And felt her incomprehension,
Her confusion.
He felt the 60 years of love
That she no longer knew.
And his voice trembled,
Lips quivered,
But real men don’t cry.