I. Gabriel1
I am being watched over.2
I am supposed to be the watcher. Days after I arrived, I was given my wings. Adopted into the order of Gabriel, who’s much more than a messenger. God said there were people on Earth who still needed my presence—people I had to watch over.3
I was willing to be a guardian angel for all of them.4
But I never counted on what she was willing to do for me.5
That star around her neck, my Cyclops eye— I remember just a few days after my ascent, she held in her tears and held out that star and I saw my first hockey game as if I’d been there. I learned to celebrate as a human while getting used to being an angel. I existed on Earth while existing in a different celestial sphere.6
In the summer, she placed it tenderly outside of her clothes so I could see the work I’d done. So I could feel her heart rate rise and fall and appreciate that I awed her into not crying.7
And she found someone to tell our secret to.8
I have learned, over this past year, how to use my wings. How to help. I have learned that some prayers, I can answer. And so I guide with my incorporeal hands.9
I carry her, as she carries me.10
II. Ayelet11
The mikveh swallows me.12
I float there in stasis; the only nakedness I feel is the absence of a star around my neck, and that’s when it comes to me.13
Gavriela.14
In this holy place, God speaks to me and I listen—I hold my breath and allow myself to be cradled, filled, enlightened—I surface and am reborn, given a new name, moved to song.15
In those first days, I kept my tears like a bulletproof vest.16
Now there are wings, solid and white-silver, a fortress.17
III. Elizabeth18
the invisible 19
origami silver webs the sky,
a net of folded stars, white like snow,
sandblasted glass,
icicled pearls.20
the slaughter of light
gnaws at my marrow—
but God has whispered things,
the geology of ashes and jewels,
how an angel vanquishes death
by breathing,
the geography of stars—
and i am swallowed
by peace.21
into the known 22
sleep,
now that you can, love,
sleep for eternity—
and when it is time,
i will wake you.23
we always held each other
like hand-blown glass
in cosmic transmissions;24
i cannot lie about my frailty.
i shattered upon your ascent.25
—but after the oceans of tears
and the freedom and trappings
of cloud-blankets and angel wings, of
you seeing through my eyes,
of taking the pain and realizing
we are sacred and divine—26
the shattered pieces are mended.27
and after the end,28
i will go home to you,
into the known.29
live 30
poetry will never be an elixir
plumbed from salt licks,
magical with eau de vie—31
—you will never breathe again,
no matter how much my words pray you alive.32
33
ink pulses in my foot
and you are still here,
when you watch with my eyes
your heart beats in the star around my neck,34
you have never left me—35
36
one night i cried myself awake
and my blanket sang me to sleep,
i never knew chopin wrote words37
but they were your words and you were alive
in my synapses in my
subconscious38
in that flash second where heaven touches earth
and the sun disappears into tidal destruction
and you breathe the world,39
in,
out.40
Passing Into Me 41
The clouds enshroud my night in blackened cold
I'm stretched from tundra to savanna grave
The snow and sand comes at my eyes, a wave
In shades of frozen white and burnished gold
I'll heal, I'll overcome my grief, I'm told
But healing's not the medicine I crave
There's nothing left of breathing now to save
And nothing left of loving now to hold.
But when the sky parts, brave and bright with stars
I feel your ghost rise up inside my skin
And though my smile is cut apart with scars
The promised healing fuels and begins.
My faith consoles me; you'll be never far—
The presence of an angel is within.42
43
IV. Alexandra44
She comes to me, face to palm and good penmanship, because I don’t like the usual laws of the universe. Science can’t explain love, can’t explain this pull I have, can’t explain God. And she’s half in the heavens now.45
She comes to me, wearing her emeralds and her loss, believing that I’ll believe in her. And I do. Why should death be the end? 46
I’m Catholic and she’s Jewish, but we both believe in God’s master plan, we both believe that loss should teach us something, that we’re the characters in God’s great cosmic book. Neither of us will speak the word “regret.”47
She comes to me breathing gold dust.48
She comes to me fleshing out angels.
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