Audio Reading and Interview with Joseph Ross

Luke 5:1 Disciples

Here are working men
with hands that are calloused

not consecrated. They are used
to the burn of ropes,

sweat and smells
of fish, fraying nets

and the squinting worry
of work.

This time they
are the ones caught,

though they try to close
their eyes,

like fish, they are lidless
and they are seen.

Somehow they are known
by this stranger

who smells like blood
on wood.

Joseph Ross teaches at American University and coordinates poetry and lectures at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Photo by Mike Kemp/Corbis.