[Intro]

State Bird by Aida Limón

[Verse]

Confession

I did not want to live here

Not among the goldenrod, wild onions, or the dropseed

Not waist high in the barrel-aged brown corn water

Not with the million-dollar racehorses or the tightly wound round hay bales

Not even in the old tobacco weigh station 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

Whatevеr state you are, I'll be that statе's bird

The loud, obvious blur of song people point to when they wonder where it is you've gone