¡Sangre! ¡Sangre! ¡Sangre!

No one knows if blood will come,but once Terríble has a handful

of Místico’s golden rimmed eyeholewe are all on our feet, stirred up, chanting.

Center ring, both bulgy-bodied menlift and fall in heavy, syncopated pants.

Every inch of Místico’s body goes slackfrom las patadas, los sentones

and the choke-out against the ropes.Each yank wrenches his masked head upward.

Under the weight of so much body,threads give. This fight is about blood.

Bleeding a masked man startswith a tiny rip in his costume, maybe

a bite, always broken skin. Once the headis opened, it takes little pressure

to make a bloody spout. From countless bleedings,heads callus. It is said some fighters

have been sliced so many times, the skinforms a buckled blanket of skin.

The leathered fortressis only cut by a skilled blade.

Terríble breaks a hole in Místico’s cloth crown.The crowd’s fists pump upward.

Each set of eyes opens in unisonwith the tear. We want it.

We want to catch sightof a damp hairline, a frowzy eyebrow,

then Místico’s open skin.What’s so fascinating about watching

an opened temple? Why cheerfor a fighter pushing another man

to the brink of passing out?Blood comes because we, the audience,

have asked for it. Before this matchthe man in the third row, under howls

from his foreman, hauled emptied corn husksthrough a second shift at an oil refinery.

The stench of burnt oil still sticksto his dull frame. The young man next to him

is a waiter who stretches his paydaybetween university books and his mother’s

dinner table. Across the arena is a tiredsixth grade English teacher whose

semester is almost up. Here when we chant“chair,” Místico will shatter the wooden frame

across Terríble’s back. When we yell for a flyinghead scissors kick, Terríble is already lifting his boot.

Tonight we want blood.We want to see arms and legs

fold and submit, to hearthe referee’s three count.

If this were a street brawl,planting ourselves curbside,

begging for the bladewould be beastly, but this

is an arena, and we are readyto watch Terríble take his teeth

to Místico’s skull. We lustfor the shaken arms, the loser’s

flailing limbs. If any red beadsare to spot up, engorge

and mix with a fighter’s sweat,we will have to yell for it again and again.

We want the trick, the whole bloody craft.Místico’s wound starts its gorge.

We are on our feet. The slick wordsgrow fat on our tongues.