"i have never and will never wear loafers."

I am writing a poem for you
and your new-shorn hair,
that mass of fur on the barber’s chair,
And you, sullen, in your plastic cape,
the sun outside
capping your red ears,

letterman jacket
sour with dust,
a hunch, a frayed cuff,
errant arms big with lust,

eyes winsome, neck ruffed
perpetually with three days of scruff.
Sloven in your sweet daze,
I want to see you again
through glens of quilt-down, heart-
wrenching knees, white
slice of gut--
I could beg
for big diadem you with a parched throat
until the white houses folded
their shingles down, opened
their lips, and sang.