Charlottesville I lived on Grounds, two doors down From the room Poe had lived in. Coming home drunk from the bars On the Corner, I never didn’t stop And stare through the plexiglass At the raven silhouetted in the window. Oh how I wanted to be haunted! And oh how I hated UVA. The guys wore bowties, the girls Floppy sun hats. On weekends They drank mint juleps And went to the horse races. They lived antebellum lives. In another time they slapped Their thighs with gray suede gloves, Broke out in diamonds at balls. Grounds was one of those places The South had survived itself, Like those prehistoric ferns That survive in microclimates. To survive myself I drank, and, Slowly, over two arduous years, Carried most of the poetry Out of the library and into my room, Diligent and dangerous as a wasp. I built my own Manhattan of books, The bottom volumes forgotten Until I got a notice they were due. I should have returned them. Instead, I renewed and renewed. Come winter I bought wood From a townie, one of the few Who had fires. This was before The Nazis marched through Grounds With torches chanting about Jews, Before they killed Heather Heyer, Before a crane lifted Robert E. Lee Out of the park. But it was there Already, a darkness, so that when I heard about what had happened I wasn’t surprised. What saved it all For me was one of my professors. When he was a boy, he killed his brother In a hunting accident. One rainy night, Crossing the Lawn after a reading, He shared his umbrella with me. I thought it was beautiful how The same hand that pulled the trigger Held what gave us shelter.
Charlottesville
Charlottesville
Charlottesville
Charlottesville I lived on Grounds, two doors down From the room Poe had lived in. Coming home drunk from the bars On the Corner, I never didn’t stop And stare through the plexiglass At the raven silhouetted in the window. Oh how I wanted to be haunted! And oh how I hated UVA. The guys wore bowties, the girls Floppy sun hats. On weekends They drank mint juleps And went to the horse races. They lived antebellum lives. In another time they slapped Their thighs with gray suede gloves, Broke out in diamonds at balls. Grounds was one of those places The South had survived itself, Like those prehistoric ferns That survive in microclimates. To survive myself I drank, and, Slowly, over two arduous years, Carried most of the poetry Out of the library and into my room, Diligent and dangerous as a wasp. I built my own Manhattan of books, The bottom volumes forgotten Until I got a notice they were due. I should have returned them. Instead, I renewed and renewed. Come winter I bought wood From a townie, one of the few Who had fires. This was before The Nazis marched through Grounds With torches chanting about Jews, Before they killed Heather Heyer, Before a crane lifted Robert E. Lee Out of the park. But it was there Already, a darkness, so that when I heard about what had happened I wasn’t surprised. What saved it all For me was one of my professors. When he was a boy, he killed his brother In a hunting accident. One rainy night, Crossing the Lawn after a reading, He shared his umbrella with me. I thought it was beautiful how The same hand that pulled the trigger Held what gave us shelter.