SECOND IN LINE

At the combination gas station

and quick food store,

a man puts his credit card

in the machine that kisses it

before rejecting it. The man

says he has no other way

to pay. The credit card knows

he’s lying. The flourescent

lights think so too. The clerk

asks how will he return the gas?

I’m second in line. I hold

a doughnut and the local paper.

The woman in front of me

has two bottles of milk. We

are both impatient,

but our stone faces give

nothing away. The man says

he’s sorry to an officer.

A Buick drives right

through the sun’s open mouth

and melts.

GOLDFISH CASTLE

Again I dream

that I’m a goldfish

swimming in and out

of a glass castle

as the glass castle

swims in and out of me.

A boy comes by

to feed us flakes

that taste like candy

moonlight.

I do

and don’t want to

wake up. The water

feels like a book, print

made of ripples. But

I must face the day,

a lightning spike

in a shoe box.

Kenneth Pobo has a new chapbook forthcoming from Wolfson Press called Raylene And Skip. His work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.