This Day's Work Is My Dying Swan

This day's work is my dying swan,
Extinct, but for your porch light on.
The lock pins rise to greet my key,
And set your captive lamp glow free.
My woolen, wet with rain and haste,
Finds bald-head hooks here, neatly placed,
With craning necks toward the ceiling-
Stained-sky, stepped-through, plaster peeling.

And I, with lonesome, blacked-eye pride,
An heirloom from my mother's side,
Now put to rest the coat and hat
And charge my boots to guard the mat,
Like crooked lions at the gate,
Where into falls the crushing weight,
As old dreams, slipping slowly down,
Lie, drained of life, and make no sound.