There’s an old farmhouse that creeks
Its big rooms hard to heat in the wintertime
With a chimney from 1802
On the edge of a neglected orchard
My grandpa planted and tended to
On the edge of a two -lane highway
That was a horse trail
And then a dirt road
And now an interstate
With mountain views
And a big front porch
And a kitchen with butternut cabinets
My yiayia would pull pyrex from and cook in
Dishes she’d learned
From her mother who read tea leaves
Back in Greece
Before she came to America hoping that each of us
Might have a better life
And it’s been hard but I know that we did
With a ceiling that once fell down
When my father was playing the drums
(he is where I get it from)
And my grandpa laughed and kept reading the paper
With plaster in his coffee
Where yellow roses bloomed outside the window
Inexplicably well and still do
