I'm going to read a poem now that oftentimes people wonder
why I ended up in Lexington, Kentucky.
I see their perplexed faces.
And it was for love.
And I will tell you that I once had a psychic tell me
that I had a bumper sticker on me that
says, will travel for love.
I think that might be true.
This poem is a love poem about moving to Kentucky,
and you'll see it's hard for me to read in Lexington
because of the first line.
This poem appeared in The New Yorker in 2012, I think.
"State bird."
Confession.
I did not want to live here.
Not among the golden rod, wild onions, or the drop seed.
Not waist high in the barrel-aged brown corn water.
Not with the million-dollar racehorses,
nor the tightly round, wound hay bales.
Not even in the old tobacco waystation
we live in, with its heavy metal safe doors
that frame our bricked bedroom like the mouth
of a strange beast yawning to suck us in each night,
like air.
I denied it, this new land.
But love, I'll concede this.
Whatever state you are, I'll be that state's bird.
The loud, obvious blur of song people
point to when they wonder where it is you've gone.
You can see why that can be a little hard sometimes
to read in Lexington.