Thrush Poetry Journal
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W. M. Lobko
​

Ecce Homo            
 
The body
is with the king
 
but the king is
not with the body,
 
a playful knot
scholars’ logic
 
only tugs
tighter.
 
When the king
slaps the prince
 
he rejoins
with a joke,
 
some laughter,
but not of the gut.
 
We can’t be
sure where
 
the camera’s
spiraling in ends,
 
its palatial visual
tragico-comical
 
golden ratio.
I’m not done
 
with this body,
its doubling
 
somehow in its cells
all it senses.
 
I want to know how
everybody dies.
 
Me too. Am I unwise
to lower my defenses?
 
Soon the fool
will clear the grave
 
of skulls like a dog―
this other skull
 
needs hiding.
It feels funny,
 
but not ha-ha funny―
weird, I guess,
 
a new wavelet
in the blood,
 
a hiccup in the tide
when I heard that
 
we don’t orbit the sun,
but that both bodies
 
ply around some
intervening emptiness.




W. M. Lobko’s poems, reviews, & interviews have appeared in journals such as Kenyon Review, The Paris-American, Boston Review, Spinning Jenny, & Guernica. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, & was a semi-finalist for the 92Y / Boston Review "Discovery" Prize. He studied at the University of Oregon & currently teaches in the New York City area.




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