Kenneth Pobo
October Maple
Please, maple,
be gentle while
releasing your leaves.
Each day they gold
and yellow my car’s
windshield. Do you
miss your leaves,
your boisterous children?
The sun walks
down the empty staircase
of your branches, watches
sunrays tangle up
a couple of squirrels.
I won’t invite winter
to a Welcome Back party.
Winter says
he’s coming anyway,
no locked door
to keep him out.
Kenneth Pobo (he/him) 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), and most recently, At The Window, Silence (Fernwood Press). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.