Estate

The house with neither founder nor first claim
Hums low—a tide beneath the rotting floor.
Some figure counts in rooms without a door,
Half Virgil’s shade, half uncle without name.
He stirs the ash where molten ledgers flame,
Then tests the dust as chemist and as whore
Of fortune, separating rich from poor:
A god who answers only to his fame.
Yet on the lawn the ducks return like gold,
Bright as the host that Wordsworth never earned.
Odysseus knew: the palace keeps its own.
While Walter’s empire blues itself to sold,
And Tony wakes where all his fathers learned
That clouds are clearest when you don’t atone—

Written with AI