The shadows in his eye sockets like shades
upon a bearded hippie, Stonewall Jackson
stares down Monument Avenue toward where Lee
sits on an even higher horse. The cause
was lost but lingers in the faintly defiant
dignity of the pale-gray, Doric dollhouse
from whence Jeff Davis, conscientious Satan,
directed our second rebellion: a damn good try.

Brick graciousness prevails; across the James
wood houses hold black pensioners, and Poe's
ghost haunts a set of scattered tombs, musei
exposing to Northern visitors his quills,
a model of his muddy city, and
an etching of, wry-necked in death, Virginia.