ON MY KNEES AGAIN

 

Some go to Lourdes,
others to the Ganges—
I go to Bette Davis,
offer a boozy prayer.
She may not answer. Angels
pester her for an autograph.
Heaven’s boring. Peace-weary
God counts on her
to spice things up.
Right now I’m going

through a difficult love affair—
Ron’s never seen a Davis film.
How can he be thirty-five
and not have seen All About Eve?
Dear Bette, can this love be saved?
Maybe I should consider it
tepid water in my bathtub.

You had four husbands,
are now 109 years old. Unroll
your celluloid wisdom. Break
your light onto me
before the final reel.

 

 

 

IN MICAH, THREE BELOW ZERO

 

Cardboard blocks the cold aching
through uncaulked windows. I may
never go outside again. Work, an Ace
Bandage wrapped too tight. In Micah

most everyone believes in do, do, do.
Keep doing. Be doing.
Eat yourself full of clocks
and puke up lost time. We call it

our way of life, go to work,
then strap on heavy parachutes
of sleep, fall and fall, finally
hit the ground. Up

at 5:30, we face the cold,
a boss made of rutabagas
shaking his thickly rooted hand
before we even shut the car door.

 

 

Kenneth Pobo has a new book of prose poems forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Press called The Antlantis Hit Parade.  In addition to MockingHeart Review, his work has appeared in: Hawaii Review, Nimrod, Mudfish, The Queer South Anthology (Sibling Rivalry Press), and elsewhere.  He and his husband await the return of the hummingbirds to southeastern Pennsylvania.