Little Henrietta
From the discount hair salon
I invented you to come undo
The torture I've been thrust upon
I'm a rolling pin
A half-deflated soccer ball
Left to brittle in the yard
In the spittle of the broken fall
I'm the scared aggression
Of a little dusk dog's bark
Middling and piddling
In the safety of the dark
Pontiac's been tainted
Rochester is done
Chipped toenails are painted
By the blacked-out friend that was
The carsick sun
But little Henrietta's from the same township as me
So natively she knows about
The coughing memory
Now everything I see is full of
Coffee
And the lofty little
Hope of love
Every day for you my
Lovely little one
Scratch your back and never slack
Or back away from our first day of profuse dripping sun
Darling
Some chipped-tooth baby doll I had
Stung me like that day
That I rode my bike into a wasp
Then Pizza Hut to wash away
All that stinging cruelty
You'll understand, I pray
The future is a creature that
Can only hope to lick the love
Its tongue tastes of today
But little Henrietta and the pillows on her bed
Where really we just kill
The memory that won't stay dead
With a tendency for spilling silly
Coffee
And the lofty little
Hope of love
Every day for you my
Lovely little one
There are three blades in my back
But two of them are yours to track
And see where they've begun
Darling
Little Henrietta
I have had three wives
You're my only ghost
The organs I have lost control of
The roll of film I can't dispose of
How your memory survives
Like communion host
Or floating with the burnt toast
That was coasting in my grandpa's daily
Coffee
And the lofty little
Hope of love
Every day for you my
Lovely little one