Show Me the Place, 4

“Show me the place.”

Duke Senior in As You Like It (2.1)

4. My Grandparents’ House

We used to live upstairs from them

On Broadway Avenue.*

And how amazing this life was?

I really had no clue.

Oh, not back then, when I was young—

Just four and five and six.

The world was so amazing then—

Pure golden candlesticks

Illuminated all my life.

My grandparents were gods—

Two living just below me—now

Who wants to give me odds

That this could happen to a kid

In 1951?

But it did happen, and that kid?

His world was filled with fun.

I took it all for granted. Who

In childhood can foresee

The loss of all those folks you loved?

Impossible for me

To even contemplate—much less

Enduring all that pain.

At times, I wish I’d never grown—

Could be just six again.

*1609 East Broadway Ave.

little brothers in the snow,
Dickie & Danny--late 1940s
1609 E. Broadway Ave.,
Enid, Okla.