What that boy lacked was

a heavy dose of old-fashioned ways,

a limitation on his mouth and mind,

the strap of the covenant and Biblical bread.

Nature left without a course

grows wild and out of bounds,

seeks perverse corners,

needs direction for its crazy moves,

the preacher said.

 

They gave him this gift of love,

a love so tough

it locked him in his room

and he spread it across the wall

with his daddy’s two-ten

“Guess I just ain’t much good”

his note read.