There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart    / só heavy, if he had a hundred years / & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time    / Henry could not make good. / Starts again always in Henry’s ears / the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. / And there is another thing he has in mind    / like a grave Sienese face a thousand years / would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,    / with open eyes, he attends, blind. / All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;    / thinking. / But never did Henry, as he thought he did, / end anyone and hacks her body up / and hide the pieces, where they may be found. / He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.    / Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. / Nobody is ever missing.

Filling her compact & delicious body / with chicken páprika, she glanced at me / twice. / Fainting with interest, I hungered back / and only the fact of her husband & four other people / kept me from springing on her / or falling at her little feet and crying / 'You are the hottest one for years of night / Henry's dazed eyes / have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon / (despairing) my spumoni.—Sir Bones: is stuffed, / de world, wif feeding girls. / —Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes / downcast . . . The slob beside her     feasts . . . What wonders is / she sitting on, over there? / The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars. / Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry. / —Mr. Bones: there is.