“Only Sixteen” / “Lonely Sick Spleen”

I’m a lonely sick spleen, a lonely sick spleen
I’ve watched my friends one by one go –
First the adrenals then kidneys were sprung
and neither of those’ll re-grow.

Well the stomach went next – I guess it was vexed
When the liver’d decided to fly;
The duodenum bailed, the colon high-tailed,
It, the pancreas bid me good-bye.

Why did the heart desert me so fast?
Why the bladder? I thought him my friend!
And why, yesterday, did both lungs have to part?
They’ve all gone away since then.

The ribs’re long gone, the spine it has split
-- from thorax to pelvis, as one –
The hips and the coccyx did not stick around
The sternum left saying “I’m done.”

Ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes,
All fled as a unit last tonight
Penis and testicles, too. (By the way,
I am a hermaphrodite).

All of the skin that we all were cased in
This morning took off at a trot.
Once we all made quite a body of work
But now we quite simply do not.
Once we all made quite a body of work
But now we quite simply do not.