A soldier’s cap, maybe a SWAT cop, but on a slim
little elf of a Canadian Liberal, in Jackson Pollock
sweat shirt and ripped black jeans, de rigueur Converse
high tops.
She is the peaceful angel, tender prophet, wings all too
visible to my tired eyes as I dream of burning this world.
I cannot let go. I never knew how to forgive. Windfall rotten
and I cannot be like her, loving, embracing, A Child of Light!
She sits next to me at the airport bar, buys a club soda,
offers to buy a beer. She repeats back to me the words
in my notebook about the woman I loved, who was A
Shard of Eden, tells me they are so beautiful.
No touches. Angel cannot embrace humans. Touch in spirit
and dreams and minds and that place where we are all innocent.
She whispers in my ear, “You can make beautiful things. You can beat
that demon.” And then she pays the tab.
In red clay soil, in a place so thirsty for tears or kisses or blood,
something stirs up, an orchid at it’s mercurial best, made blue
and green, and it’s tea is bitter and warm, like days of youth.
