Thrush Poetry Journal
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Michael Homolka
​

Upper West Side on a Saturday
 
So I’m also an essence   great   Some tell me
nothing’s held back   that spirituality
just sits there right in front of us   identical
to the layout of objects in public places
 
A bag pops in the street   The addictive
quality of birds I can’t name   triangulating
from tree to tree   bears down on me
and the moment of disturbance billows out
 
Every bone   pink and transcendent
in the eternally 22-year-old bodies
of infomercial apologists and corporate indulgence guys
likewise contains those few horse-fallen
 
moments after and truth from which
no prophet ever turns   So it’s no surprise
when I check out Equinox for free stuff
early on a Saturday   to find myself
 
standing there beside Saint Francis
clothes in a bundle and purse full of coins
and neither of us inclined to speak
What he finds beautiful   I’m not
 
quite ready for   nor his unadorned irritation
at the concept of ‘multi-level paradise’
hot pink as valid as gold   promotional elect
rehashing their endless mauves




Michael Homolka’s collection, Antiquity, won the 2015 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry from Sarabande Books. His poems have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, Boulevard, Antioch Review, Agni, and Poetry Daily. A graduate of Bennington College’s MFA program,  He currently teaches gifted first-generation high school students in New York City.




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