Walk through this city of noise,

of horns and sirens and shouting,

and find a nondescript two-story house

across from the bars and wires

of the new prison.

A guide invites you into a quiet parlor,

where you find rockers in every corner,

floral wallpaper in clashing patterns,

the Victorian style,

paintings and daguerrotypes

of somber men and women,

his friends and acquaintances,

and a photograph of him sitting

by the corner window,

the light catching him, illuminating

his great white bush of a beard,

the same light glinting off a decanter,

placed in the center of a jumble of pens,

papers and books.

Legend says he would throw money

out the window to passersby.

You can almost hear the neighborhood kids

whispering about “mad old Mr. Whitman.”

Yet he held court here in Camden those last years,

entertaining the likes of Dickens and Wilde.

Upstairs in the bed chamber,

papers are stacked all about the floor,

as though he has just taken a break from

the latest revision of Leaves of Grass.

A cane leans in the corner,

perhaps the same one he used to rap the floor

and tell his housekeeper to quiet

her infernal dog’s barking.

You half-expect the old Yawper to lumber in the door,

rumpled, wide-brimmed hat over his eyes,

and converse with us about

the restoration of the Union, the rights of women,

the bountiful apple trees in his back garden.

As you descend the back stairs to leave,

the stained glass window over the landing

filters the afternoon sun –

bright blocks of red, yellow and blue

wash you in color

like an old benediction.

11/11/2002

Author's Note: [First Prize, ByLine Magazine 2003 Short Fiction and Poetry Awards; published in the February 2004 issue.]

Posted on 11/11/2002
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt