NOVEMBER POETS

Poet: Ken Pobo

UPPERPENINSULA

Ice carries a gun.

Civilization carries a bigger one.

Visit Keweenaw Peninsula,

236 inches of snow a year,

Lake Superior’s way of saying

I love you.  Spring comes,

A friend we thought had died

we see from the kitchen window,

carrying trilliums.

WALKPAST

I walk past WashingtonSchool,

my old grade school,

now a retirement home.

Closed curtains hide

where we put construction

paper pumpkins on windows.

In kindergarten,

when the teacher gave me an easel,

I fingerpainted our house,

other kids, stuffed animals.

What would those

who live here now paint?

Death’s face?

Or their houses,

kids, and animals

from an earlier life?