Sick at 6 & sick again at 9

was Henry’s gloomy Monday morning oh.

Still he had to lecture.

They waited, his little children, for stricken Henry

to rise up yet once more again and come oh.

They figured he was a fixture,

nuts to their bolds, keys to their bloody locks.

One day the whole affair will fall apart

with a rustle of fire,

a wrestle of undoing, as of tossed clocks,

and somewhere not far off a broken heart

for hire.

He had smoked a pack of cigarettes by 10

& was ready to go. Peace to his ashes then,

poor Henry,

with all this gas & shit blowing through it

four times in 2 hours, his tail ached.

He arose, benign, & performed.