Three Poems

by Bubba Henson

Jam

5 p.m., rush hour. Traffic stopped
on the highway. Tall signs on the access road
tell what is sold nearby.

Like a woman in labor
whose pain is everything
to be forgotten after the baby has come.

Or when young lovers lay out on the blanket
and look up at the stars with gratitude
but cannot name one.

Traffic is at a dead stop.
The same song can be heard from several car radios.
5 p.m., classic rock. Nothing new synchronizes.

Morning Hike

On an autumn morning feel
how the trees are dying.
Against the hedgerow
a groundhog pokes his head up.

Freed by imprisonment:  the locomotive of tolerance.
And the note on the counter.
Out of the autumn haze two trees
make a cross. It is unclear on the trail

whether the noise is air displaced
by a diving owl, or the furies rushing by
on their way to the cave, to bargain
the gift of fire for souls.

photo of boat on a lake at sunset

no ghosts here

more the unknowable
for those in the vacuum
of their birth

a boat on a lake
does not exist for everyone

present a sunset
explain a dinghy
describe a body of water

and still it won’t do
not all consciousness is portable

the sole of a shoe can tell you this

Poet Bubba Henson lives in Sarasota, FL., and teaches at State College of Florida. He has worked for MTV Networks, and has written for World Wrestling Entertainment, Golden Books, and the Hearst Media Group. His poetry, creative non-fiction, and short stories have been published in Blue Lake Review, The Raven’s Perch, Nifty Lit, Magazine1, The Laughing Unicorn magazines, and the Florida Bards Poetry Anthology 2024. He has an MFA in Creative Writing in Poetry from Columbia University.