church

"Refusing to Do Anything" and "I'd" by Kenneth Pobo

Refusing to Do Anything

Like a minnow 
I can’t decide which school 
to travel with. Maybe if I stay still 
I’ll make friends with the bay 
or ripples circling a water lily.   

Most of my life,  
six decades of busy. 

I’m off to loll inside 
a red tulip.  
Yes, lolling is an activity.  
Contradictions kiss.   

A bee buzzes overhead.  
I think his name is Death.

I’d

march into my old Bible Church 
of Villa Park with my husband 
and sit in the front pew 
holding hands 
as Pastor unpacks several 
grocery bags stuffed 
with shoulds. The church

sold to another church 
and even that church died.  
Real estate must give God 
a headache. In my youth, 
the same forty or so people 
came each week, the same 
ideas batted back and forth 
like a badminton birdie.  

What would they have done 
to see us together?  
Fenced us in with angry words?  
Fenced us out with silence?   

Church offered candles 
and poison. It can no longer 
break us. Or get in the last word.
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Kenneth Pobo has ten books and twenty-eight chapbooks published, the most recent being Winbuds from Cyberwit.net.  His work has appeared in: Amsterdam Review, The Fiddlehead, Hawaii Review, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Brittle Star, and elsewhere.