The Washington House

Dark King

The Washington House

(Virginia 1965)

Through rows of tall straight

Long needle pines

I could see what remained

Of Doctor Washington’s house

It had stood on a gray gravel road

For fifty years

The last fifteen…..empty.

Down the road

It got swampier

And the poorest

lived close to the bone.

Washington’s house

Had no panes left

A corpse of grandeur

Like a general in his casket.

When we walked through

We could feel something fine and good.

We sat gorging in Elderberry trees

Bathed, glistening in the impossible.

We paced floors of white marble filth

And varnished wood, yellow and matte.

Some dark king.. he was.

Then we returned

To working fathers stuffed in cages

Like lions hamstrung and roaring

In evenings of purple light.

Joshua Kight

1/19/07