by Kenneth Pobo
Sometimes I’d like my family
to enter a spaceship headed to Titan.
The farther away they are,
the more I relax. It’s not that
I don’t love them. I do.
They’re like lugging a hill
on my back week in and week out.
Kids stir a cauldron
of credit card debt and toss me in,
a daddy stew.
I don’t tell Mary this. She says
I’m distant, a tennis ball rolling
into a river and floating out of sight.
I’m a good dad. I don’t miss
Elton’s baseball games,
don’t scold him if he strikes out,
which he does more than the others.
If Edwina wants ballet lessons, I pay
and watch her practice. If only
I could be alone, even a few times
a month. Stand outside at night
and look for Saturn,
my family near the rings, me
driving a fast snowmobile
on Earth, waving without stopping.
Kenneth Pobo won the 2014 Blue Light Press Book Contest for Bend of Quiet. They published it in 2015. In addition to HPR, his work has appeared in: Caesura, Colorado Review, Mudfish, Hawai`i Review, and elsewhere.
Hawaii Pacific Review 