The Plunder House

Tired of the empty fields,

the saw grass stretching out of ditches,

the yellow-petalled weeds by the roadside,

we came upon The Plunder House,

its grey-blue-wood-paneled walls,

its mossy-green-shingled roof, and no,

there was no pirate above the door

despite the fact we half expected

to see one with a cutlass in his teeth,

a gold hoop earring in his right ear,

and a skull, perhaps, on his trigone hat.

Inside, the dust-filled light made velvet

shimmer in mirrors, the room

swimming in the nostalgia of attics,

of the untouched, the dead.

A scale, some frames, and then

a cruciform vial filled with foxglove

bearing a lop-sided inscription claiming

a cure for the dreaded Dropsy.

And among the maps, a star chart

from the 1860's, its once night-indigo

now the faded blue of blueprints—

in the middle of all those stars,

the artist had found it necessary

to place Cancer, entire worlds

touching its sturdy, spikey arms.

Medical students then, we had yet to learn

when we could or could not cure.