(Inspired by Emmeline Grangerford, Dec’d.)

Girls, take his cold dead hand and kiss
The knuckle – very thin,
And bid adieu and ballyhoo
Poor Huckleberry Finn.

And was it prowling cannibals
Or adversary’s sin
That spilled the flood of crimson blood
Of Huckleberry Finn?

O hear my sad, sad words of woe
(As I more clement wax)
And mark! His brain was cleft in twain
By yonder guilty axe!

What “trouble t’was to make a book,”
Said Huckleberry Finn.
By reading close his text morose
We find our souls therein.

(Originally submitted as an appendix to a college literature paper, circa 1991. I’ve improved it over the years. –DGJ)