Walk in the back door — no one uses the front.
Welcome to the kitchen; 70s appliances, wooden paneled
everything; the children who are now adults sit around the round table, 

Watch your step into the living room,
a fireplace full of wood my uncle’s chopped up,
the baby grand piano sits on carpeted floors.

Winding up the stairs, all the bedrooms
including the infamous Red Room –
named when we snuck off to explore a few years past diapers, 

a watchful clock that ticked only loud enough to be heard in the room,
multiple clown memorabilia (or perhaps that’s just how I remember it),
the overhead light always out.

Warm meals aplenty; supper included cheese grit casserole, 
green beans in a crockpot, roast beef, and mud pie for dessert.
When we stayed the night as kids,

breakfast ranged from goetta and biscuits to 
doughnuts from the shop down the street.
This white house on Hwy 44 in Shepherdsville

has stood for more than a century;
grandma’s been offered plenty of money to sell it
to bulldoze the lot to make way for more Walgreens or Walmarts.

While grandma’s become a permanent snowbird
living with my aunt and uncle in Florida, 
the house still stands —
and is always there when we need it.