Poetry
Kenneth Pobo

Photo Credit: Richard Cuppini/Flickr (CC-by-nc-nd)

I can’t decide whether
to buy the red pair of gloves or the black.

A high school girl runs a kiosk
behind me. A shopper comes up
and says he wants to buy me—
I’d look good beside fireplace bellows.
I say I’m not for sale—the high
school girl has already begun
wrapping me up. I decide well,

why not? My life’s a failure.
I watch shows where Marie Osmond
says she lost fifty pounds. When he
gets me home, he stands me by the fireplace.
I look almost alive. The buyer

never talks to me. Why should he?
He doesn’t talk to his ottoman either,
dusts me twice a year, the same number
of times when he makes a fire
and heats my back.

Kenneth Pobo has a new book out from Duck Lake Books called Dindi Expecting Snow.  His work is forthcoming in: North Dakota Quarterly, Festival Review, The Fruit Tree, Backchannels, and elsewhere. Email: kgpobo[at]verizon.net