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Camden, 1892

The smell of coffee and newspapers.
Sunday and its tedium. Morning
And on the glimpsed page the vain
Publication of allegorical verses
By a happy colleague. The old man
Is prostrate and pale in his decent
Poor room. Otiosely
He spies his face in the weary mirror,
And thinks, unsurprised, that face
Is he. The distrait hand touches
The turbid whiskers and looted mouth.
Not far the end. His voice proclaims:
Almost I am not, but my verses scan
Life and its splendor. I was Walt Whitman.