
AUNT STOKESIA ENTERS JEAN METZINGER’S PAINTING WOMAN WITH GUITAR
by
Ken Pobo
My friend Harriet says that my problem
is my cubist soul. I ask what she means.
She says I’m incapable of seeing
real things. I get huffy,
pour more tea, and maybe she’s right.
Reality goofs up. In school
I suffered when Mrs. Cardano
forced us to multiply.
X meant times.
Times were hard enough.
X marked the spot where
my dreams disappeared.
Numbers scalded like lava.
When someone asks how I’m feeling,
I freeze. I get that one wrong
all the time. I’m feeling
like lemonade cornpoppers. It’s real.
Like someone playing a guitar
but all I hear is drums.

Aunt Stokesia Unsure
Decisions, boa constrictors,
squeeze the life out of me,
even decisions like which
parking space to choose
or brand of sparkling water to buy.
In the store I shift from foot
to foot, make a choice. Return
what I chose. When I got married,
I decided I was certain about
my future husband. He felt certain too.
We rode the bus of certainty—
until it crashed. We hobbled out,
alive, but less so.
Even divorce wasn’t certain.
There would be loneliness, a break
in routine. Should we?
We did.
We became mountains
covered by fog. We couldn’t
see if we were real or not.

Kenneth Pobo is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine 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), and Wingbuds (cyberwit.net), and Uneven Steven (Assure Press). Human rights issues, especially as they relate to the LGBTQIA+ community, are 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 and retired in 2020.