HANG-OVER ANGELS

Why am I so sick of transmissions?
It is the New Year, and I have nowhere to go.
I've been listening to the radio. It gives me
Bach, Western Swing, new sofa ads.
All it asks is that I sink in.
I'm tired of the impossible made visible.
Please, at least leave that alone.

I’ve been very concerned with angels lately;
I keep thinking they must have teeth.
Pearl-white, or nicotine-
stained incisors, it doesn't matter.
They will be extinct, and so collectible by next century.
They pop open our oxygen
the way we do some fizzy, overly-sweet childhood drink.
They're after one thing: the dull, comforting
redundance of memory.

Why can't one snow-drift stranger
find me among the muddled many?
Why can't he look at me, eyes steady
as airplane warning lights, and say,
“Now you know what angels know,
and that's nothing. Between each step,
there's just bare air and grace...”