Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

to do with as she pleases Night after night
she’ll have you there for her pleasure, your pain.
Point out some wreck of a man in an alley
and all will say: ‘Lucy has ruined him.’”
“Lucy?” Poe asked. “Why, of all names, Lucy?”
“That’s what she calls herself. Sometimes she speaks
her name or a few lines of poetry.”
Here Pabodie broke in, “And then she’s gone,
as thin as smoke and pale as a firefly.”
“So I have seen a spectre — the very same?”
“So, Mr. Poe, it would seem. I counsel you
to keep to yourself your summer vision.
The families on Benefit, you see,
have secrets, and keep them. Monsieur Dupin
would be hard-pressed to decipher them all.”