The poem, then, whatever its wide cast of characters, is
essentially about an imaginary character (not the poet, not me) named
Henry, a white American sometimes in blackface, who has suffered an
irreversible loss and talks about himself sometimes in the first
person, sometimes in the third, sometimes even in the second; he has
a friend, never named, who addresses him as Mr Bones and variants
thereof.
Requiescat in pace.