issue 24 > poetry > pobo

Aunt Harriet calls, tells me
she's sick, her same claim
for decades, tells me to come over

pronto. Though she lives
forty miles away, I go. When I
get to her house with red lantern

glads shining up her walk,
I hear her moans, fluff her pillow,
get her tea—I wish our whole family

would drop into a volcano, she says.
Years of hurt smell like camphor.
Her house looks tidy

despite hundreds of smoking volcanoes.
Lava burps and burns linoleum. I ask
if we should try to escape,

race for the door. She stays put,
body smoldering, eyes, molten
stones on a fiery slope.






Also by Kenneth Pobo:

Dindi Slips