LILAC BUSH
At school, the red rectangular door,
the line of kids. No escape,
recess a threat. Someone has it in
for someone else. But
at the corner of Delco and Second,
a lilac bush, purple and pungent
in May. I rarely see the older lady
who owns it. When others
buy her house, they cut
the lilac down, the barren corner
like an empty trash can.
When I walk to school,
a lilac smell still
overtakes me.
Kenneth Pobo has a new chapbook out called It’s Me, Dulcet Tones (Half Inch Press). His work has appeared in Indiana Review, Mudfish, Asheville Poetry Review, and elsewhere.