October. Poe in Baltimore. PoenAt the end, going North, awaynFrom Virginia, keeping promisesnDespite the black beak of despair,nLaid over, waiting for the train,nBut just now, drunk, out of the coop.nLeaning in Lombard StreetnAgainst the window of a store.nMaking his pitched and stammered waynToward Cooth & Sergeant’s Tavern —n(Sergeant Major Poe, First Artillery,nHonorably discharged so many years ago) —nSlow way of starts and fits.nThe drink and drugs sluing his heartnInto blind staggers and sways.nAway from Virginia and towardnVirginia in the grave. She playednThe harp that January night and sang.nIt was a good song, too.nBut so soon, so quickly a tiny vesselnPopped in her throat like a New Year’s squibnJust as she reached her last high note.nAnd for five years it broke and brokenAgain, until she died, was laid away.nAnd Poe learned an awful truth:nHelter skelter or catcher in the rye,nArt kills as often as it saves.nOn Lombard Street in Baltimore, memorynTwists him, presses his forehead against the glass,nHis heart wheezing like wind through the cottage wallnIn Fordham where Virginia lay. His heart liftsnIn his chest, flaps clumsily aloftnLike a great white bird, then settles back.nAnd Poe is grounded, left in the lurchnAs he was abandoned by his party friendsnAfter voting all morning under a dozen names:nHis own. Usher, Reynolds, Dupin, Pym,nRaising his hand again and again, taking the oath,nSwearing he was who he was and was not.nSwearing he was.nHart Crane asked himnNearly a century later whether he deniednThe ticket, but how could he deny a thing.nHe who was all things that day and none,nA multitude of beings and only one.nLeaning on a window, his forehead on the glass.nHis eyes unfocused or focused deep within.nPoe at the EndnbyR.H.W. DiUardnAnd yet he does see past VirginianWith blood on her blouse, past ElmiranLeft behind in Richmond, jiltednBefore she ever reached the altar,nPast even the bloated face of Edgar PoenReflected in the window, drawn and drawn outnIn the wobbly glass, the sodden mannIn a stranger’s threadbare clothesnWith only Dr. Carter’s borrowed canenStill clutched in that familiar hand,nSees through the tortured glassnTo a display of pewter and silvernLaid out within the shop, slick knivesnWith thin images of a singular mannUpon each blade, rounded shining cupsnWith a bulge-nosed alien facenIn each curved surface, two largenSilver plates with his own desperate starenReflected plain in each, the brow.nThe carved out cheeks, blue lipsnBeneath the sad mustache.nnnBut henLooks beyond this olio of images,nThese hard lies and harder truthsnDisplayed before him, to findnA large silver coffee urn, beknobbednAnd crusted with handles and thicknVines, blossoms and twisted ribbons.nIts surface flat and curved and rounded.nConcave, convex, and convolute, -s’.nAnd in its turbulent reflectionsnHe sees a young man’s face,nA young man with dark hairnAnd uneven eyes, a young mannLeaning on a cane with promisesnTo keep, a face he recognizesnBut cannot name, knows but cannot claim.nThat looks him steadily eye to eye.nHis heart will soon calm down enoughnFor him to stutter on, reach Cooth &nSergeant’s, fall onto a bench, be found.nBe carried to the hospital, lie there in fever.nCall Reynolds’ name, ease out of deliriumnOnly to say, gently, “Lord help my poor soul,”nAnd die, having for one moment on Lombard StreetnLearned still another awful truth:nPell mell or waiting just to die,nArt saves as often as it kills.nMARCH 1991/13n