The Goff Mansion
Life is shorn of summer's reflections
By the
shock of regenerated sunlight
Flashing
on ripened currants,
September beaming judgment
On the
house that scowled
Like a
castle, down at Main Street.
The pigeons are merciless,
Like the
rain falling on past and present
Equally
through rotted-out roofs.
Summer wore its ragged dress
Cropped
off above the knees
For sunlight
chasing.
A coat of autumn burlap
Fit for
wind and three day rains
Has been
rejected for the day
Leaving imagination bare-bodied
To dance
in a moment's heat
Of shameless
poverty.
The red brick overripe mansion
And the
hay-gold dying grass
Share the
judgment of colored leaves,
A twilight shell to hide
The whiskey-drunk
daughter of spring
As she
lays atop discarded clothes
And welcomes the trespasser
Whose rawlimbed
charms find home
In the
shadow of abandonment.
The canter of oblivious footsteps
Passes
over the trysting site
And echoes
from the brick garage
As children cast their seed
On ruined
flower beds,
Lust concealed
with haste and silence.
The last red of the sun still touches
The red-giant
bloat of the mansion
As lovers
turn and run their separate ways.
9/23/84
