I suppose if I ever had a hometown, it would be Milford:

The summer stifle,
The blooming humidity of July in southern Ohio.
The pockets of lilies in the front yard, early,
The butterfly bushes whose flowers never drop
Though long since crushed by ice and snow
Filling out the season.

I suppose it would be also
The gas lantern, ignited, like
Brilliant egg sacs waiting to burst –
The house in darkness in the afternoon,
The heaving clouds rolling through
Drunk and furious with rain –
The fireworks
From 4th of July clapping in the distance.

It’s somewhere in the roots
Of the great blue spruce
Whose needles grew in silence and shaded
A three-year-old’s feet,
An eleven-year-old dog’s chest
That lifted and lowered like a ritual.
Needles that held whiffle balls and
(Go Reds)
Yellow plastic bats stained green
From the grass.

I suppose it would be my mother’s red coat
The smell of wet cigarettes and wood,
The canoe trips at Sharon Woods,
Candy corn and King’s Island,
A sweet cinnamon chili on spaghetti,
The sweat of Kentucky Derby horses
Finishing the final furlong.

It’s somewhere, too,
In the easy voices of strangers:
The corner store clerk,
The way he speaks,
That careful mix of Kentucky drawl and
The Midwest Os –
I remember studying their faces as they spoke,
Mouths open wide as if trying to engulf
every syllable.

In a parking garage in 2009
I find myself beside a blue Ford
With Hamilton County plates.
A professor told me once that if I left Ohio –
And I did -
That I’d become just like the rest of them.
When you are young you long to leave.
When you are younger, you learn to stay.