The Cock Fight Place

After they had married, Mariquita one nightLooking for Adolfo went out and found him.

She had to step over a dried phlegm-and-dirt floorIn a dark, cock-fighting barn, had to step over

A ground made of decades-old sputumGifted carelessly from half-shaved, thick men

Everywhere, and dying or just barely living cocks,A floor bloodgiven, scuffed

Into an inexpert, misshapen setting of scab tiles.Her husband was drunk, and here.

Mariquita collected Adolfo and took him awayFrom what he needed to be taken away from.

They would never speak of this night again—Though for Mariquita the sounds of the fight would not go,

The sounds of all those men huddled,The odor of the cloying perfume they made on that hot night

All of them together and shouting, placing bets, spilling beer.Mariquita remembered, as she made her way past the rooster fight,

How she had seen the one soul-white cockSpattered with blood like hot kitchen grease.

This cock had an eye pulled fully outBut it continued to fight,

Then lost the other eye to a beak and a hard pull.Still, it continued to fight, could not stop fighting,

Stretching its head and neck up higher, then higher still,Trying to see, imagining that something must be blocking its view,

Trying to see, never for a moment thinking it was blind,Confident that the cheering was its new eyes,

That the noise was sudden muscle.Both owners kept spraying their fighter birds,

Watering them from their mouths, through their teeth,Spitting a mist on the fury of the birds,

Fooling them into momentary coolness, until the winner,The not-white one, finished, allowed itself

To be corralled and soothed and rewarded,And the owner, laughing through his half-beard,

In that old way of these fights, took the cock’s headInto his mouth, that fastest way of cooling an animal best.