THE LOCKET
               Leave this paradise of blond wooly
taxidermies noosed in parsley. Nod out via autopsies of tenderheartedness.
And rapt in secret studies, unsayable.
               “Your heaven has a fire in it,”
pencils the boy to the mushroom hunter, silverfishing hair a century long.
               O golden child, sing this back a little
peppered from the wishing well, splintering acrylics as the keeper’s cloak
               leathers the mouth of the one life
kept alive on roadkill patties, plucky quail marred by green-taloned heat.
               “I will eat your sky-blue driving gloves,” coo
taffy callboys, pyrotechnically. And you know your heart by heart by now.
The boyhood codeine made me prolific.
               Red clown pubics curlicue the supper stew, burbling
fork-tender glue factory roan. A life spent at one’s desk is a life spent alone.