Every night as I try to sleep
in my head clear as a radio
Ozzy plaintively sings
"Mama, I'm coming home."

"No, no," I say to the dark,
as if Ozzy, like a coywolf,
could emerge from it anytime,
like the juvenile I saw trotting

through the fog that curtained
the road home. But
Ozzy persists, the soft guitars
pulsing through me, mauling.

"I may be right, I may be wrong,
It hurts so bad, it's been so long!"
He isn't coming home, Ozzy,
you old liar, eater of bat's heads

live on stage without catching
any sort of plague.  It is I who
have seen his face a thousand times,
every day we've been apart.

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This poem contains direct quotes and paraphrases from Ozzy Osbourne's "Mama, I'm Coming Home"