What that boy lacked was a heavy dose
of old-fashioned ways,
the preacher told the worried couple,
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,
he said with great conviction
They gave him the gift of love,
a love so tough
it locked him in his room
and spread it across the wall
with his daddy’s four-ten
“Ain’t much good,” his note read.