Two Poems by John Zedolik

Annis Domini

As those curtains in the sanctuary
were rent so history on Good Friday

          —in crisp two’s—

          as an apple by sheer knife

leaving a pair but one for all
to take forward into a future

now split from that old other,
the strong liquor distilled

from vinegar and gall to sate
the thirsts of throats, flesh sharing

in the day that cracked as well
and carries its hour into this entropy

merely—graciously—to stay

Flex

Palm Sunday reserves the ass
for the seat of Jesus but to us

are given new fronds like the ancient
strewn along his Jerusalem route

and yielding the day its name
for our humility lower than

the concavity along the donkey’s
back, flexing to the Savior’s weight

along the vertebrae and spine we should
bend in sympathy to the burdened beast

and the man more as the fiber waves
under nerves’ impetus of our gripped hands.

John Zedolik is an adjunct English instructor in Pittsburgh. He has published poems in such journals as Commonweal, Poem, and Transom. In June 2019 he published a full-length collection entitled Salient Points and Sharp Angles (CW Books), which is available on Amazon. His most recent collection is When the Spirit Moves Me: Examinations of Faith (Wipf & Stock/Resource Publications, 2021).

Image: Palm tree and aqueduct, Israel. talya einstein Pikiwiki Israel / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.5