COVID-19 and Dahlias, a Poem by Ken Pobo

For the collection: 'Life in the time of #COVID'.

Photo by Mark James.

When I exhale in my mask

my glasses fog up. Today is humid.

I can barely see where I’m going.

That’s nothing new. My path

is always hazy. I have dahlias to pot up.

They need a head start so we can

enjoy them before fall. It’s not raining

but it feels like rain wants to visit.

I think of sturdy stalks,

Buds breaking open. Where will we be

in August? I may need the dahlias

to provide beauty, names

of the dead almost visible,

so many names. I put the pot

with two scaur swinton dahlias

near the shed, ask them

to do me a favor: grow,

be vital, bloom your pink heads off.

Bring a cloud down

and ask it to sing on the roof.

---

Kenneth Pobo is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include 'Bend of Quiet' (Blue Light Press), 'Loplop in a Red City' (Circling Rivers), and 'Uneven Steven' (Assure Press). 'Opening' is forthcoming from Rectos Y Versos Editions. For the past thirty-plus years he taught at Widener University and retired in 2020.