At Poe's House

Behind stern glass, the manuscripts.
You try to settle through the ink
into the heart of the man,
but somehow all you can see is the
anonymous pride of curators.

It seems you were destined
to follow him around the east;
first in Virginia where they honored him
for his gambling debts.

Now in his Philadelphia home,
you wonder why they've locked away
the medicine chest; where are those
opiates? And why not bronze the sidewalk
for the times he bruised his head
in a drunken faint?