Kudzu

I’m beginning to see myself as a derelict home.
My face is furred in a marbled gray beard
I couldn't imagine being able to grow as a teen.
A receding hairline of distressed design
flailing out in midlife crisis strands
too long to look cultivated but too short to be a statement
from under a flat cap I'm finally old enough to wear without notice.

A fine peacoat and herringbone slacks,
a dress shirt I'm surprised I can afford.
A portrait of a man unprepared for
financial flashbacks of hourly paychecks,
and uneasily eyeing the ticking digits of a gas pump.

Presbyopic glasses so foreign to my face
I'm sure they must hide my identity
in the tradition of Clark Kent.

Like some caricature version of myself
conceived by a carnival artist
with a head too big and eyes too set apart,
recognizable but awkward--odd and embarrassing,
and fearful this is how I appear to others
who see me more clearly than I see myself.

I feel brooding surrounded by more manicured
and respectable homes in this zip code
like some melancholic adolescent painted black,
but without the novelty and excitement of revival--
a cheap coat of bituminous paint
applied after the harsh season of childhood.

But I fear even the cracking and creaking of my bones
are just the foundation settling deeper into soil
upon which I was erected,
and the kudzu has grown too thick
and overwhelmed my dilapidated framework.

I still want to see myself, shabby with wear
as some stately Victorian full of Eastlake embellishments
or as a solid craftsman with strong lines and design
fortified by the prairie philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright,
meriting my place in the listing of edifices and homes.

But I no longer see the value in renovation.
I don't want my crooked back straightened,
or my dropping eyes lifted,
or my hair cut back to reveal the stonework.

The idea of replacing boards and smoothing joinery
to bring about a renaissance of youth
seems too loud and costly,
and the required contractors too much a hassle to engage--
the new knobs, and pulls, and fancy fake patina
too strange to get used to.

I want grass to grow,
and the driveway to crack and buckle
so that no one visits.
I want to withdraw into the shade of the overgrowth
and the cool damp embrace earned by forgotten places
and rest abandoned amongst the ghosts
and neighborhood fables
of half-recalled horrors real and imagined.

I want to sit alone
and quietly trace the scratches on the floor,
and the dings on the cabinets,
and the handwritten heights on door jams,
with their squeaking hinges
and rusted locks.