by John Grey
Angel Death
Power applauds when angels fall –
slow and polite,
like a king on its throne,
as the wings, once white,
are now just muddy roadkill feathers
clinging to bones that barely remember
what it meant to watch over anything.
The worms do power’s real work –
they take away the flight, the halo,
even the holiness.
Angel’s remains are buried deep.
And power prays over them,
not with scripture and hymns,
but new construction, armory and lies.
Some nights, power watches the sky
in case an angel slipped through
its netting.
Or it listens to the earth,
in case some good is reassembling
surreptitiously.
Laos, 1986
gold-rimmed, hut roofs,
half wall of a temple
overrun with vines;
farmers hoisting
hoes, spades, sickles,
over shoulders,
slogging through the paddies,
faces leathery
like rusty oil lamps,
lit by dusk;
speckled ducks
trotting in formation
toward the woman
with the bowl of grain;
sun fed by sky to
hills of verdant jungle;
moon rolling lazily
through rising fields of stars
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