GOING BACK

It stands its ground
like a disheveled drifter
wallowing in hard times,
its best years reduced
to a fading memory vanishing
like dew under a July sun

This is the house of my childhood,
the repository of happier times,
careless and carefree,
imprinted on my brain
like a recurring DVD

Over half a century ago
is when I spent my final night there,
a kid of twelve, uprooted
like an impudent dandelion,
only to be transplanted across the city
to our new home

Like an old man,
this house has shrunk with age,
a sliver of the stature imprinted
on a child’s memory. It looks
weary now, the siding faded and peeling,
shingles missing, front steps
rotting and buckled as if from fatigue

The lawn that I scampered across
is overrun with crabgrass and bare patches,
symptoms of neglect,
like the house behind it

I lack the courage to knock on the door
and request from the current owners
a tour of the interior, for fear
of what I might find. I risk my

recollection being repudiated
like a drugged hallucination,
a young boy’s idealized memories
mocked and trampled and as parched
as the front lawn

I close my eyes, turn my back, preferring
 to hold on to my sixty year old vision,
freshly painted and lushly landscaped,
infused with laughter and the scent
of Christmas trees and birthday candles,

because if I step inside, what other
memories of my youth will I find
tattered and soiled,
neglected and false?