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 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.