Angels # TWO
Christopher Tower
Wind fans the wings
of two angel-lovers
resting in the dark. The corners
of the night are turned back,
a bed ready. The testimony
to their love breathes
sharp and smooth as pipe music.
This testament collects dust-thin
eider-downing their sleep time--
a deja-vu blanket of yesterday.
They serenade their bedtime,
playing mandolins without hands.
The watch-moon sears
a brand on their beds of soil.
At final moon-crow, the
locks click on oaken doors,
sealing their separate bedrooms.
The Angels preserve
their love in jars
lining cellar shelves.
Blindly, they plead for black bars,
dividing past and future, to open.
They hear the white man approach,
footsteps assaulting stone,
his scissors
clacking--
the final treatment--
the pruning of justice.
Filmy silence static clings
to the rumpled mattress
between the two Angels fallen.
Their shame is betrayed
by the lonely scars
on their empty backs
brushing the white cotton sheets.
They moan at the key-hole moon
in a soggy night.
of two angel-lovers
resting in the dark. The corners
of the night are turned back,
a bed ready. The testimony
to their love breathes
sharp and smooth as pipe music.
This testament collects dust-thin
eider-downing their sleep time--
a deja-vu blanket of yesterday.
They serenade their bedtime,
playing mandolins without hands.
The watch-moon sears
a brand on their beds of soil.
At final moon-crow, the
locks click on oaken doors,
sealing their separate bedrooms.
The Angels preserve
their love in jars
lining cellar shelves.
Blindly, they plead for black bars,
dividing past and future, to open.
They hear the white man approach,
footsteps assaulting stone,
his scissors
clacking--
the final treatment--
the pruning of justice.
Filmy silence static clings
to the rumpled mattress
between the two Angels fallen.
Their shame is betrayed
by the lonely scars
on their empty backs
brushing the white cotton sheets.
They moan at the key-hole moon
in a soggy night.