Home: A Poem

Before we had money, we lived in a flat, The dear little woman and I. There wasn’t no danger of us getting fat, And the cellar was painfully dry. But though we now boast of a house in Duluth And go there in passenger coaches, That house, it don’t seem like the home of our youth, For a home ain’t a home without roaches.

We now have twelve slaves at our beck and our call, And Navajo rugs on the floor; A platinum hat rack stands out in the hall; There’s a pearl-studded knob on the door. Sweet mother goes round with a mouthful of gold, And wears South American brooches, But somehow she ain’t the same gal as of old— And a home ain’t a home without roaches.

The house that we live in has vermin enough To satisfy most folks’s taste. In fact, many servants have quit in a huff With bites from the neck to the waist. The mice and the rats and the weasels crowd in By thousands as winter approaches, And mother and I—well, we bear it and grin, But a home ain’t a home without roaches.