A chattering, live thing in the bottom of a yellow pill bottle that is Kentucky.
The rumored wolf tracks along the hemlock ridges leading to the limestone cliffs, filled with pools of rain and tasting of Kentucky.
Dig everything out of the old burn pit on the property. Save the old green and blue glass. The dress buttons. The unidentifiable twisted tin. The dog jaw bone. The doll arm. This is what’s left of the dreams of their Kentucky.
You can drive through the mountain’s long and deep belly into another state but something about you still smells of Kentucky.
If it’s in regard to being in the top five of bad lists or the bottom five of good lists, then feel free to speak of your lovely Kentucky.
That rattling you hear after hitting all the potholes on the coal road when you try to go back home isn’t your muffler loosening up, it's a gravel kicking around the emptied skull of Kentucky.
It’s not just animal hoarders, some of that stench is just all the meth cooking up in Kentucky.
A church on every corner. A corner for every church. A snake for every Saturday night of the year in Kentucky.
Once the heels started flapping he peeled off the shoes a lot of people didn’t think he even had and slung them up into the pretty kudzu on the side the road while out roaming the backroads of Kentucky.
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Larry D. Thacker’s poetry can be found in or is forthcoming in over fifty journals and magazines including The Still Journal, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee, Mojave River Review, Broad River Review, Harpoon Review, Rappahannock Review, Silver Birch Press, Delaware Poetry Review, AvantAppal(Achia), Sick Lit Magazine, Black Napkin Press, and Appalachian Heritage. His stories can be found in past issues of The Still Journal, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Dime Show Review and The Emancipator. He is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia, the poetry chapbooks Voice Hunting and Memory Train, and the forthcoming full collection, Drifting in Awe. He is presently taking his poetry/fiction MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan College. www.larrydthacker.com