In our youth’s spring, we bet chore money.
Those worlds of warmth and waves, lent such times.
Time ticked timid; visions weren’t runny.
Muggy mornings meant blooms were honey.
Dewy brush harbored our childhood crimes.

By deeds devised during dawn’s disk,
dusk dealt no doom for boy/girl lecture.
That divine gloss, turned spray by feet frisk,
inflicted insect and ivy risk.
We’d bear most for nirvana sectors.
 
Foreign lands bared a backyard creek brand
His “wonder” tools spurred that two should push.
Her sweet voice spoke me, a muddy hand.
I embraced the dare to scoop the land.
The earthworm hunt reduced hands to mush. 

She made two so she was made to gag.
I exposed disgust of a frog’s touch.
In turn, she’d casually carved all swag.
From creek water gulps to hugging stags,
true refunds are five and stomachs clutched. 

Those times bore, before death’s notion.
Scaling risked limbs voiced second nature.
Allergies ceased no wasp’s commotion,
You’d think the creek’s flow was an ocean,
her leap failed to its legislature.
 
And, which moral should endure life’s plain?
For our labyrinth, no memory’s wider
than how she betrayed stinging pains
and caused all chore monies to drain
by kissing the dangled black spider.

From the Soul,

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