What does it mean that the men use “a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness”? why is it terrible to be internally soft?

Examine the imagery in these lines of the poem "the legend" by garrett hongo. he is asian, thai or vietnamese, and very skinny, dressed as one of the poor in rumpled suit pants and a plaid mackinaw, dingy and too large. he negotiates the slick of ice on the sidewalk by his car, opens the fairlane's back door, leans to place the laundry in, and turns, for an instant, toward the flurry of footsteps and cries of pedestrians as a boy—that's all he was— backs from the corner package store shooting a pistol, firing it, once, at the dumbfounded man who falls forward, grabbing at his chest. how does the imagery in these lines affect the reader’s experience of the poem? check all that apply. it creates a visual picture of the man. it conveys what the scene sounds like. it describes the actions of the boy. it reveals the poet’s opinion of the characters. it encourages readers to care for the characters. it shows the resolution of a conflict. it explains the reasons for the event.