It was a highway that brought me here Stuffed into a expensive car with four adults and good music We drove for what seemed hours Arriving on the slick, black streets of the Emerald City Down a rabbit hole of old cars and termite ridden stairs Past an old couch and a stray cat Into a cold room with heaters stacked and jumbled Full of pianos and good and beer People I've known for twelve years And people I've met only once People I don't know Different skins, of their own, of animals Frizzy and cropped hair, wine and mason jar glasses Walls painted silver, gleaming under forty year old lamps Mismatched furniture and occupants alike Sirens singing in the background Children running through the foreground Old friends and a blind man with a big dog Visual artists and IRS agents Musicians and carpenters Mechanical engineers Cobbled together around and old fireplace and a rosewood piano Sharing stories and songs, sons and daughters Tales from the road, and wedding pictures I sat on an orange pleather couch in the makeshift kitchen Watching theses people's children play with bionicles and dolls Reading books and drawing on walls Playing drums and answering calls Fighting for bathroom stall These are my people I know them all