YELLOW PERCH by Kenneth Pobo

 



YELLOW PERCH


When you ask about my life 

as a perch, I say that mostly 

one day is like another 

at least in summer.  I hear 

turtles sunning on a log

gossip.  We praise our water 

goddess in rain 

or sun.  In winter 

I barely move.  Time 

forgets to come home.  

 

To some other fish

I’m food.  

A dangled hook holding 

a worm teases me 

to my death. I may have 

five years.  Some make it 

to ten. 

 

You want my story 

almost as much 

as you want me 

on your plate.


© Kenneth Pobo




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) and Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.  


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