Nothin very bad happen to me lately.

How you explain that?—I explain that, Mr Bones,

terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety.

Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones,

what could happen bad to Mr Bones?

—If life is a handkerchief sandwich,

in a modesty of death I join my father

who dared so long agone leave me.

A bullet on a concrete stoop

close by a smothering southern sea

spreadeagled on an island, by my knee.

—You is from hunger, Mr Bones,

I offers you this handkerchief, now set

your left foot by my right foot,

shoulder to shoulder, all that jazz,

arm in arm, by the beautiful sea,

hum a little, Mr Bones.

—I saw nobody coming, so I went instead.