~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Chloe Cook

Geography Lesson

                       after Mackenzie Berry

Above slow-as-molasses Alabama and fried-gator Florida,

Kentucky steps on the Midwest’s neck. True, it’s got derby charm:

purple feather fascinators on roller-permed hair,

bloated beer guts hanging over well-fastened belt buckles,

old breweries with wood-beam cathedral ceilings. Below

buckeye Ohio and not-soda-not-coke-but-pop Michigan,

Kentucky licks gravy off its fingers. My old home

sort of Kentucky, my bluegrass cicada sort of Kentucky,

my caramel’s not caramel unless there’s bourbon in it

sort of Kentucky. Here, hot browns burn your gums,

your tongue betrays your origin with [Lou-ee-ville] or [Lou-uh-vul].

You don’t know cheesy grits or red river gorge

or mountain dew or Appalachia until you say proper [A-puh-la-chuh].

We wash our hands in the creek, stomp our feet

with the banjo strums. We do chili and burgoo. We do [pee-cans].

Pots and pans banging on New Year’s Eve, shoofly pie

stuck gooey in the molars. To the right of does-anyone-

even-live-there Arkansas and above moonshine Tennessee,

Kentucky is the South because its peaches come cobblered.

Chloe Cook holds a BA in English from Northern Kentucky University. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Bayou Magazine, The Journal, New Limestone Review, Stoneboat Literary Journal, Lascaux Review, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at the University of Florida.