BOBOLINKO AT THE FUNERAL
I’m here at my grandmother Ada’s funeral wearing a dark suit and black shoes, clothes I’d never be caught dead in… sorry about the pun…had this occasion not happened. Ada was quite formal. The grandkids were told to call her Mama Ada, never granny. We were an obedient bunch. Then.
I guess I was sad, a little, when she died at age eighty-four. I think I should feel more than I do. Maybe an epiphany will hit me when I’m in the store and I’ll see a canned ham and remember that she loved those. Probably not. Epiphanies have a short shelf life with me.
I arrived late. But not terribly. I wave to a few relatives and sit on a folding chair in the back. I think of Greta Garbo, not because she vanted to be alone, but because of her style, even when her Camille character coughed up her lungs. My own style is paper thin. I admire it in others. If only I were a better actor today. I probably don’t look grief-y enough.
I want the sun to kidnap me from this over-carpeted room that smells like candy and perfume. The service will, I hope, be brief as a comma. Until then, there’s Greta who, even though dead, sits near looking world weary. Pastor Wilkins lacks style. Comfort slides off him like sweat. I disappear up my sleeves.
A TYPICAL DAY
I’m in my home office while my husband sits at the dining room table doing a crossword puzzle. He asks how I am. I say I’m fine. I ask how are you? He says What? I can’t hear you. Thirty years, a rusting Ford in the garage. He won’t sell it (“It might be an antique”) and I know nothing about cars except that they bore me.
How are you? What?
It’s a hard question that feels like a trap. I could answer badly and get in trouble. I could get the answer right and scare myself. Maybe I should become a monk who takes a vow not to speak for twenty years. A vacation from talk. After stirring my tea with melted syllables, I’m not sure if I’d want to come back.
I’m fine. How are you?
I go out to the garage to find gardening gloves and check the car. Two mice scurry out when I open the door. Before the car becomes scrap or a new couple in our house sells it for parts, both of us will be long gone, he in a grave and I in an urn. Two silent places. The new couple will try to hear each other over the TV and a half-watched video.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kenneth Pobo (he/him) 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), Lilac And Sawdust (Meadowlark Press) and Gold Bracelet in a Cave: Aunt Stokesia (Ethel Press). His work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Crannog, Nimrod, Orbis, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.
