ANTHEM
[Negative]
We first suspected you wanted more absence
when an occlusion ended too soon, a blunder
of light, the day’s live origins spreading
into these eagles silhouetted by the sun.
Fiber optics lengthened our reach, but our
uncertainty
increased.
How does one lay a foundation?
Toddlers from the plains ran laps around us.
We were in the past: oblivion, billions. You are the era
of emails from the moon colony which remind us,
after stitching a star in our eye, that we’re
captured.
Your nemesis sketches of some stranger keeps us
quiet, smarting still from being mentioned.
W. M.
Lobko’s poems, interviews, & reviews have appeared in
numerous journals, including Kenyon
Review Online, Sixth Finch, Hunger Mountain, & Boston Review.
New work is forthcoming in Slice Magazine.
His poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His MFA is from the
University of Oregon, & his home is New York City, where work on his poetry
manuscript Kin Anthem and his novel The Quick Brown Fox doggedly continues.