Angels and Other Considerations

...If angels lodge inside
us, they feed on details, then retreat into hiding.
— Lance Larsen, Santiago, Pluperfect—

Angels aren’t picky.
Content to live in fat and bone
muscle and viscera,
they ward off dragon and slave and bully.
They hide in my indifference.

I don’t know why
this leafy green village is
greener than ever this summer,
so many dollars away from sprouting potatoes and moldy cabbages,
rats and lice and other perils of the poor.

I sing to the angels behind my breastbone
in my gut
lurking in my loneliness
or wherever they chance to land
and I sing to the angels in my leafy green village
in exile from indecent slums.

Somewhere angels screech hosannas to misery.
Somewhere angels pray loudly to money and joy.
Somewhere angels are silent and dangerous.

Why, the child asks, is the sky blue? Why do things die?
And talk about wave lengths and cycles of birth and death
leaves her cold
and leaves me cold
Why?
Why?
she asks.

And the angels are silent and dangerous.