Show Me the Place, 78

“Show me the place.”

Duke Senior in As You Like It (2.1)

78: Poe House; Poe Park; Bronx, NY; July 2003

The final house* for Edgar Poe

Still stands there in a park**—

A park that now is named for him—

A house so plain, so stark.

His wife died here at 24–

And Poe then fell apart.

He ran to other women then—

Despite his fractured heart.

But alcohol soon did him in—

He died in Baltimore.

Just forty years he’d lived on earth

Before life closed the door.

*1846–49

**Poe Park