Kenneth Pobo

HI DEATH

It may come to me like a
telegram, only a few words,
terse, impossible to ignore. Or
it may be seductive, wooing me
(are people wooed anymore?)
and knowing how my flesh
is weak, I’ll give in. Maybe
it will come like a plane’s shadow
over our house. It only takes
a second. My grandfather died
that way, crossing a street. It may
come like that picture of Jesus
knocking on our heart’s door,
half god, half salesman. I can
choose to not be home—or can I?

One day I may welcome it,
however it comes,
body, spirit, used up, ready to leave,
holding a blanket before

letting it go.

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of thirty-three chapbooks and fifteen full-length collections.  Recent boo ks 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.