Image | Mikhael Mayam
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.
Really beautiful.
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