diff --git a/Modules/posixmodule.c b/Modules/posixmodule.c
index b8bda3b5e45..40526a465ed 100644
--- a/Modules/posixmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/posixmodule.c
@@ -3615,7 +3615,7 @@ static PyObject *_PyPopenProcs = NULL;
 static PyObject *
 posix_popen(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
 {
-	PyObject *f, *s;
+	PyObject *f;
 	int tm = 0;
 
 	char *cmdstring;
@@ -3624,8 +3624,6 @@ posix_popen(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
 	if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s|si:popen", &cmdstring, &mode, &bufsize))
 		return NULL;
 
-	s = PyTuple_New(0);
-
 	if (*mode == 'r')
 		tm = _O_RDONLY;
 	else if (*mode != 'w') {