from: visions of a desert angel

 







                154



angel wraps her bright eyes

around a dark man

warps her lips into a smile

that screeches like a train.



she is hipping and hopping

watching the still gray air of others

circle away from them

and return

more still

and darker than when it left.



in her heart of God she is beating out

a slow burial

for the doomed. in her other heart

of God she is singing

and clapping

dancing raindrops over the ground.







                    156



in her fantasies-- like mine

and yours and our mothers’

she is no longer a romantic paraplegic

but an able-bodied lover

able to cover another with her soul

while they cover her--

stitched together like a two-sided quilt.

   it does not matter one soul may be more right

what is important

is that one body may be more wrong

than another-- and there is time to search.

always time to search--

though her invisible rose heart

is approaching the end of spring

and preparing to hit the july desert

of too long alone,

unwatered.









               157



angel dances

zips zings zims and zooms

through the universe

capitalizing fire

screaming to the fire trucks--

   you there--

run over that apple!

   and you--

water my garden!



through the night

   like a bright

      chip of blue ice

   she cuts

      jagged

          and melting sharper--

ripping the flesh off of heaven.













                 158



naked, and disemboweled, heaven

weeps out its blood for her--

washing her tattered garments of failure

wishing she would face the pithy night

and pray one golden prayer

for the collective soul.



illegitimate angel

does not know who her father is

does not understand

when she prays for one

she prays for all

and when she prays for all

she is really praying for herself



instead, she prays for herself

and no one-- not even her-- is helped.







               159



she is not illegitimate-- she knows

who her father is-- rather

she is illiterate. she cannot read

people any bettern the rest of us

can read assembly instructions.

but the buddha truth of it is

when she left me on the floor

she was not careful

because no one else was around

and we were both laughing

wildly drunk with the human experience

our lunatic hair both frayed and matted

with the burning sweat of madness.

it was not bad

it was good

just as all things

are unequivocally

      good.