The Gentleman Whose Bones Left Him

A Cautionary Rhyme

Reginald Thorne stood stiff and proud.
He looked down his nose at all of the crowd.
"I have backbone," he'd say. "I stand upright and true."
He never once thought what his backbone might do.

One night while he slept, his skeleton woke.
It cracked itself free and it finally spoke:
"I'm tired of holding your head up so high.
I'm leaving tonight. I won't say goodbye."

It packed up a suitcase. It walked out the door.
And Reginald slumped to a heap on the floor.
No spine to sit up. No ribs to contain.
Just meat in a pile, just skin like a stain.

He burbled, "Come back!" but the bones didn't care.
They clicked down the street in the cold morning air.
They checked in downtown at a hotel in town
and wrote him a letter:

"Dear Sir, I have gone.
Forty years was enough.
Now carry on."

So if you are proud, if you strut, if you preen,
be kind to your bones and the spaces between.

For bones can walk out
and leave you behind,

just meat on the floor.

Just skin.

Just rind.