Kenneth Pobo

DEAR EYDIE GORME,

My husband is out of town,
and in our messy house
I fret about cat hair.
It’s everywhere, much of it
threading my brain. I’m lonely
as a plastic bottle of sparkling water
waiting for a hand. I don’t expect
my husband to ease my loneliness.
He can but I can be lonely anywhere.
Once I broke down weeping in
a swanky elevator. I get out

my records and find “Tonight I’ll
Say A Prayer,” which brought you back
to the Hot 100 in late 1969. I was 15.
I didn’t much like that year despite
some hilarity that faded. The song
is yearning which I do well.
If my yearns were gasoline, many trucks
could crisscross the country from them.

Night takes menacing steps into
the living room. With no defense,
I turn you up louder. Tonight I’ll
say a prayer. Grab it for me
and send it to a dahlia just coming into
bloom on heaven’s weedy outskirts.