John's Christ — Blackbird Archive

← v6n2, Fall 2007

The auctioneer commits his little gaffe

when his helpers lift the latch-hook tapestry

of Leonardo’s Christian masterpiece:

The Large Supper. The waiting bidders laugh.

And though the latest spiritual fad has raptured

a populace of novel novel-lovers,

DaVinci’s purpose is better left to others.

But here at our local auction I am captured,

wanting to lean, like John, away from the master,

get some perspective on His hands, the gist

of one opening, one closing, not a fist,

His arms apart, beholding, Jesus’ gesture—

over his empty plate and the rag-tag cast—

preparing for the word, large, or last.

religion art humor

John Poch

John Poch’s newest collection of poetry, Fix Quiet (St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), won the 2014 New Criterion Poetry Prize. He is also the author of the poetry collections Dolls (Orchises Press, 2009), Two Men Fighting with a Knife (Story Line Press, 2008), and Poems (Orchises Press, 2004). His work has appeared in The Yale Review , New Republic , Ploughshares , and elsewhere. He was a 2014 Fulbright Scholar at the University of Barcelona, and was winner of the 2007 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. He teaches at Texas Tech University.