Kentucky Is Not The South

Kentucky is not The South,
is not the red-clay drawl of the sweet magnolia
blossom-watered down home.
It is the dogwood and mountain laurel
copper-tubing neutral recluse up home,
who had slaves but treated them well
and let them go,
who coined the phrase brother against brother,
split right down the middle,
and we don't take sides,
and we don't refuse the fight, but
Kentucky is not The South.

Our consonants are hard and our vowels
are not quite lawng eenuff.
We are in a borderland with our own resolutions,
lungs heavy with coal, at the head of the holler,
hemp-growing, bible-loving Baptists and Christians,
and we did not vote for The Catholic President,
and we did not cripple George Wallace,
we make no noise and hold no malice
and, Kentucky is nowhere near the Mason-Dixon line, folks.

We do not stomach that sweet Tennesee sour mash
gonna-do-it-again, gonna-rise-again whiskey.
We sent our sons both ways, tobacco-grown
mine-blackened bootleggers' sons, no cultural guilt here.
Our bourbon-candied aristocracy is not old money, not English loyal,
but dirty money, got by hard work and smart gambling,
got by gun-running to the Cherokee,
and we never agreed to secession,
and we never committed to the union,
and Kentucky is not The South.


for Jay Davis