Boys will be boys will

pine for lost dogs will

time travel in the space between soup scoop and spoon sup, will

knee-skid on dirt, moon-loop through tree tops, will

want friends who dream-share star sabres, infinity sugar, will

whisper in the dark at your door in pyjama-soft dread,

I just don’t know what to do

will curl atop you and suck muslin cloth, will

cry into the safe cave of your collar-bone, will

want your lipstick your eyeliner your skirts, will

sink silent into stories of orphans and cruel masters, will

dance with strange paper ziggurats calligraphed in cabalistic signs, will

want to be sheriff and diva, will

sketch doom castles in the sunpatch to piano sonatas, will

fight emperors with torch light, receive mortal wounds, will

find divine resurrection, because say that’s what happens?

And this time I’ve got the magic force?

So now the king-alien dies? Will

jump sofas and tables to thrash-metal drums, will

scuttle up the air’s skin like spiders, will

snout out the scent of your bed-musk for solace, will

sew purple felt flowers to clothing, thread clear-glass beads on blue string, will

sweat like ripe summer currants with rage at injustice

when boys will be boys who just misunderstood, will

punch you in the breasts for not listening, will

cry when they feel their own hard-ribbed shame, will

hold their galaxy-gasp fingers to a neonate’s knuckles

soft-soft as if to a pup’s wet nose, will

wear bruises like leopard skin they were born in, will

carry cuts like initiation rites into daylight, will

run to their fathers as if there were two words for mother, will

run to their mothers for skin-milk memory-shelter, or

boys will be boys as we all care to will.