The Gift

Angels do not appear dressed as we imagine. Why
would they? They are naked beneath their poor choices:
unmatched and worn. A hat and no shoes. Shoes
and no shirt. Unpressed. Unvarnished.
Nor do they appear porcelained and
glowing as the skins of fish trapped in the depths do.
An angel is nothing if not ferocious. How else
to look upon the face of the unfathomable and live?
And they live all around us, drawn to our smell of
semen and clay, sweat and womb. You may feel
them as something that brushes your neck –
You assume the flit of a mosquito
where there are actually great and invisible wings, so thin
and transparent in the days, then dark
against the darker night. Be glad you cannot recognize their faces.
They are not faces any could love.
Many a coarse man has insulted an angel
upon seeing one. Gorilla. Many an assumed good man thinks,
Ugly bitch. The angel appears to laugh because
the mouth opens with the corners turned up, but
the sound is a high wail, a keening into the blue.
An angel holds no boundary between ecstasy and rind.
How do I know?
Would you believe me? Let’s say I have held more than one
in my pitiful arms. Let’s say I have stroked the head
of fallen angels who knew I would. And their mouths. Their mouths.
I pick up where others leave off. I walk the streets alone.
And there one is: so lonely, so lonely my back aches. I am not afraid
to face the unbeautiful guardians in all their guarded beauty. I am
a bale in the barn where they may lay. I am the sweet-grass high
and pungent where they may shed their tears. Look at my bed.
Feathers     everywhere. And in my hair,       down.