What Makes A Man In The Evening Poem by Raj Dronamraju

The night crouches behind a low wall to jump out and surprise you
To get between your legs and force you to stumble
A man rights himself and pays the night no mind

It's not thinking of another while kissing someone else
Tongue in motion but it's not the tongue of the person you are with
A man does his duty and selects the clothes from the cupboard he is going to wear tomorrow

It sounds like complaint and a man does not see that as a manly trait
He does what he wants and if it doesn't work, no one will ever hear about it
Feelings wash together when expressed like the residue from an easel in the sink

He thinks about crushing the head of the man in the workplace with the orange tie
He makes sure he never runs out of empty self-assurance
He scrapes the scraps off his dinner plate into the garbage before putting the plate in the sink

There's dark in the spare room and two words that pass between her and him in ten minutes
And he walks around looking for tomorrow's justification
He doesn't find it but he finds the evening holds together, warmly and with sense, in his hands