The upper-level bedroom is covered in dust,
as though there has been a volcanic eruption.
Emptiness is its sole occupant.
This is where, a hundred years ago,
you sat in the bare wooden chair beside the bed and practiced violin.
How could you have had any idea that the bed
you slept in would some day lay intact,
white, flowery covers and all,
an artifact in an informal museum.
Could you have known who would look
through your now-aged windows at a blurry,
mahogany world?
These windows must have been clear then –
you might have looked with wonder upon
the growing population of your quiet town.
It was one of those early twentieth-century towns
that rested on the edge of a century, excited
for long-awaited change and perhaps
subconsciously
anxious for a war that would finally represent
a concrete initiation into modern dystopia.
You, however, knew nothing of war, having died of a fever in 1912.
And now we are here to see where you lived
and died.
Visitors come and go –
You are, in a sense,
remembered.