Kenneth Pobo

EARLY MORNING

On the beach near our cabin
I begin to sing. Donovan,
“There Is A Mountain”—

no mountains here
but many pines. The song
makes me as happy as sand

warms my thighs. How lucky
that I’m alone. Often
I think I could run off

with solitude,
cover it in kisses. Swimming
into view, a goose family

paddles past, goslings
huddled close. I grab
my phone from my shorts

to take their picture,
change my mind,
let them be. A picture

can intrude. Off they go,
sparkle by sparkle,
until hidden by reeds.

FRANK AT SEVENTY-ONE

We used to get food
at the Red Owl grocery
in St. Germain.
I looked forward to
Cleary’s vanilla ice cream,
no longer made.

The Red Owl remains—
a corporation bought them.
Now it’s enlarged like a goiter.
I may as well be back in suburbia
where stores look and feel
pretty much the same. I don’t

want to return to that
earlier time, but I’d like
a dish of that ice cream
again, smooth on my tongue,
mom writing in her diary,
dad reading the paper,
a Wisconsin breeze
through the screen door.

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of thirty-three chapbooks and fifteen full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), At The Window, Silence (Fernwood Press) and It Gets Dark So Soon Now (Broken Tribe Press). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.