KENNETH POBO

 

Note To My Ashes

 

Some of my best friends

give shade, but I don’t want to slide

under tree roots forever.  Worms

might visit my decay,

but I have yet to invite a worm over

for a chat. I’d rather be

 

the final cigarette

since I no longer smoke, my body

one last puff. 

Then clumpy ashes. 

 

I apologize to whoever deals with them. 

If my husband survives me, maybe

he can toss them into the garden

like we did with my mother’s ashes. 

She’s there, and not there,

among blossoms.  Or maybe

 

I’ll end up in the trash, wrapped

in a plastic bag, the trashmen

carrying me away, my last song

squeaking wheels.

 

Dead Birch

 

I walk around the yard

and see roses in bud.

Robust Spanish pinkbells

have returned.  I avoid

the birch tree

since I know I won’t see

leaves.  I haven’t 

admitted it to myself

yet, but it’s dead. 

Never strong, it may

have spent its life

wishing for northern

Wisconsin.  We’ll have

to cut it down, a droning

electric saw

its funeral dirge. 

 

Bobolinko Talks

To His Dead Grandfather

 

I ask him how he likes Heaven. 

 

He says there’s no sex,

which means less drama.

Angels gossip on gold streets. 

No one paints or writes

poems.  People amble

like blissy drug addicts. 

 

Sometimes he returns to

Earth, a jumble sale, 

the people marked down,

no one buys.

 

KENNETH POBO

 

KENNETH POBO: is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections.  Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and Lilac And Sawdust (Meadowlark Press) and The Book of Micah (Moonstone Arts). His work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Asheville Literary Review, Nimrod, Washington Square Review, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.