Kenneth Pobo

Tipton Poetry Journal – Fall 2021

Bobolinko Doesn’t

KennethPobo

talk much about where he grew up. He changes the subject like it’s dirty underwear. Somewhere in southern Indiana.

He says his mother is a warped Window sill. His dad is silent as a Patoka River marbled salamander. Bobolinko left

for San Francisco at 22 but couldn’t afford it. Three years of restaurant work. Three years of eating doughnuts from trash cans. Three years of streetcars dissipating like clouds. Now he’s here in Wausau. We may be compatible as scrambled eggs and sausage.

Pines guard us. We need guards since time carries a pistol and sneaks up behind us.

Kenneth Pobo is the author of 21 chapbooks and 9 full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), Dindi Expecting Snow (Duck Lake Books), Wingbuds (cyberwit.net), and Uneven Steven (Assure Press). Opening from Rectos Y Versos Editions is forthcoming. Human rights issues, especially as they relate to the LGBTQIA+ community, are also a constant presence in his work. In addition to poetry, he also writes fiction and essays. For the past thirty-plus years he taught at Widener University in Pennsylvania and retired in 2020.