| IT is true, fellow citizens, | |
| That my old docket lying there for years | |
| On a shelf above my head and over | |
| The seat of justice, I say it is true | |
| That docket had an iron rim | 5 |
| Which gashed my baldness when it fell— | |
| (Somehow I think it was shaken loose | |
| By the heave of the air all over town | |
| When the gasoline tank at the canning works | |
| Blew up and burned Butch Weldy)— | 10 |
| But let us argue points in order, | |
| And reason the whole case carefully: | |
| First I concede my head was cut, | |
| But second the frightful thing was this: | |
| The leaves of the docket shot and showered | 15 |
| Around me like a deck of cards | |
| In the hands of a sleight of hand performer. | |
| And up to the end I saw those leaves | |
| Till I said at last, “Those are not leaves, | |
| Why, can’t you see they are days and days | 20 |
| And the days and days of seventy years? | |
| And why do you torture me with leaves | |
| And the little entries on them?” | |
