Pappy says boyhood is a thing too long lasting
and rightly named, on account of its false protection. Boyhood covers
your ass by stuffing wadded socks in your rear pockets
so the switch hurts less, swung with all the piss
and Bible Pappy could muster. Pappy says no backtalk,
says each man has got to plow their own
pasture to create some place respectable
where they can cart around their hurt like thick hunks
of stone.
This is how things are to be done. How a man is to be made: by pushing
logs that fall from the backs of trucks into the ditch across the road and
whipping the mutt that follows you to the mailbox each day
until it feels thankful and a little scared to even be alive.