I hear I was an unruly child, and I was fortunate to have been reshaped by the remedies of the day, to be a bit less unruly man… 

Remedies

As a child I knew not how to behave
long before I had a wisker to shave
long before I had a notion of right
and wrong, I found myself in fright
for the remedies correcting my sins.

For the forced apologies to make amends
of transgressions in witness of family friends.

For words I never knew that I knew.
As I tried them, I found something new.

The taste of soap is a remedy of first order
such that I wished I had a mental recorder.

For then I’d know the word I shouldn’t say
to avoid the taste of soap that lasts all day.

Nor, for that matter the sound of a belt
on my behind, and how deleteriously it felt
as a remedy for a child that was learning still
to behave while expressing his (not so) free will.