Welcome Visitor by Kenneth Pobo

A hot summer day, my head

a wet melon.  As I sip

cranberry juice on ice

Theodore Roethke opens

the screen door and sits beside me. 

For someone who has been

dead for decades, he’s

as articulate as ever.  I ask him

how his poems are coming along. 

He says a few are almost

in bloom.  I have some

of my own that have buds—

sometimes they blacken

and die.  I offer him juice. 

He says he’d prefer a drink. 

Oddly, I can offer none

as I haven’t gotten to

the liquor store yet.  He points

at a woodpecker by our feeder,

then vanishes,

a human drop of dew.  

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is a retired gay teacher from Pennsylvania.  He has a new chapbook out called Wrap Me In Plastic And Feed Me A Butterfinger (Chaps Poetry Series).  His work has appeared in:  Colorado Review, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, and elsewhere.