Poetry By River Knoblach

John Buie CC




Plastic Chair Throne
Crooked on the porch
white plastic legs shift, creak
under mom’s restlessness;
her throne has gone greyish
by the dirt dust kicked-up 
beneath the rumble of asphalt

She watches the cemetery slope 
making a graveyard of her own
orange filter headstones 
lopsided, foul flowers crumpled
in the yellow gaunt grass

Waterfall wisps cradle callouses
up between nails colored sick
like the daffodil perimeters
heading the freshly heaped earth

On the porch, mom is a monarch
watching her subjects scatter
between the wind whistled teeth

On the porch, I’m afraid of Her
a reverence quiet and holy

On the porch, statued

​

River Knoblach is a Pittsburgh native, third-year creative writing student at Seton Hill University. They explore themes of place in connection to the non-physical, queer identity, and bodies in memory through vignettes and poetry.