They have little tractors in their blood <br />and all day the tractors climb up and down <br />inside their arms and legs, their <br />collarbones and heads. <br /> <br />That is why they yell and scream and slam the barbells <br />down into their clanking slots, <br />making the metal ring like sledgehammers on iron, <br />like dungeon prisoners rattling their chains. <br /> <br />That is why they shriek their tires at the stopsign, <br />why they turn the base up on the stereo <br />until it shakes the traffic light, until it <br />dryhumps the eardrum of the crossing guard. <br /> <br />Testosterone is a drug, <br />and they say No, No, No until <br />they are overwhelmed and punch <br />their buddy in the face for joy, <br /> <br />or make a joke about gravy and bottomless holes <br />to a middle-aged waitress who is gently <br />setting down the plate in front of them. <br /> <br />If they are grotesque, if <br />what they say and do is often nothing more <br />than a kind of psychopathic fart, <br /> <br />it is only because of the tractors, <br />the tractors in their blood, <br />revving their engines, chewing up the turf <br />inside their arteries and veins <br /> It is the testosterone tractor <br /> <br />constantly climbing the mudhill of the world <br />and dragging the young man behind it <br />by a chain around his leg. <br />In the stink and the noise, in the clouds <br />of filthy exhaust <br /> <br />is where they live. It is the tractors <br />that make them <br />what they are. While they make being a man <br />look like a disease.<br /><br />Tony Hoagland<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/why-the-young-men-are-so-ugly/
