I’ve never known a house without a home
A kitchen that didn’t burn overpriced Anthropology candles
or smell of freshly cut hydrangeas in the summer.
An apple pie didn’t count unless it was baked from scratch
and Grandma’s happy cake was a box mix but it
tasted like love.
Sunday dinner of chicken divan
and of course with milk in all our glasses,
talking politics I didn’t understand
and about people I should know but
i don’t remember.
Now a house is a mattress with no frame
and the only thing that burns is the ramen
you forget to put the water in
or when the cheap tequila reaches the back of your throat.
The only smell is gasoline when you have to tap the stovetop 3 times with a
thrifted wooden spoon just to turn it on.
The only apples now are ‘“how do you like them?”
and a box mix cake is just
a box mix cake.
Sunday dinner is just as raucous but the only company
is inside your head
and suddenly you miss when you didn’t understand the primary
and didn’t remember Jimmy with the bait and tackle shop down the road.
And when a house was still a home
