johnny masiulewicz |
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Johnny Masiulewicz is author of the poetry collections Keywords: a dada experiment (Happy Tapir Press) and Professional Cemetery (Puddin'head Press). His work has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including Curbside Review, Letter eX, Redhawk Review, Blue Sugar and The Alembic. A native Chicagoan, he now lives and works in Florida. |
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The Polish Word for Ostrich |
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the Polish word for ostrich,
billboard; we passed it daily
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mirror train-window image.
leaving me brick-patterned by
the smokestacks beside the tracks
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soar, leap, defy gravity,
the back crown, speed vault, reverse
split, sticking the high dismount
saints, miracles: the flying,
Saint Egwin scales a steeple,
Saint John locks an iron cross
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that one story from the New Testament, that one with the stormy Sea of Galilee and the apostles all going chickenshit in the bottom of their boat, that one story must have really had a lasting impression on the turtles that live in my pond.
don’t ask me how or when they got hold of a Bible, let alone read one. all I ever see them do is sun themselves on a flat rock that juts just above the surface of the water, some sixty feet from the shore, where the pond is at its deepest.
they must have that Bible stashed somewhere behind that rock, or at least have that one story, the one with the apostles out fishing and the storm suddenly hits and they’re all terrified but then Jesus appears on the shore.
as I appear on the pond’s shore I feel all turtle eyes upon me. then just as I get to the very edge of the water all the turtles suddenly panic and dive off the rock as if they are afraid I am coming out to harass them.
that one story from the New Testament must have really left a lasting impression on them, that story where Jesus steps from the shore and calmly walks atop the surface of the water all the way out to the apostles' boat. he even entices Peter, saying that any man who is pure and true in heart can walk upon the water.
so I’m thinking, either these turtles think I’m Jesus, or they at least think that all humans can step off the shore and walk on water, else why would they spook and scatter so with sixty feet of pond between me and them.
I guess they have never seen a human swimming. or just maybe they can somehow tell, with some turtle sixth sense, some turtle vibe, that I am pure and true in heart.
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