Codfish Heads
        --------------

        Oh she was a salty dear,
        and she shed a pretty tear
        for the codfish heads upon the strand,
        her loaf of bread in hand.

        Slit them and salt them and hang them to dry
        on the tables of sticks
        supported by bricks.
        Stack them and pack them in boxes she ties
        with coarse algae twine
        she soaked in strong brine.

        Cape Cod girls, they don't use beds,
        they stuff their ticks with codfish heads.
        Tangled up hair with codfish bones.
        Fishermen's girls never use any combs.

        Her lover's gone away in a wooden ship 
        to the undulating sea,
        to a mermaid's slip.
        Silver buckles at his knee,
        he left her home with the codfish.

        Oh she was a salty dear,
        and she shed a pretty tear
        for the codfish bones upon the strand,
        his photograph in hand.