Guest Angels

My frost bitten fingers soften into
steamed, white asparagus tips.
I raise them up toward the cries of vanquished
women, their apparitions mingling with the
five o’clock work crowd. Everywhere their
currents are picking up speed; those simply
shot mingling in with others whose bodies are
more slowly tortured. Some hunch over
patiently, waiting for their truths to resonate.
Children too, on winter days, gallop
from cloud to cloud on broken toy horses.

Beside them ride angels visiting earth
on their yearly pilgrimage.
Sometimes the wind comes pouring through
the valley like a flowing monologue and
you know it is a solitary soul from some
other window. Night and day rain
contradictions. Through it all, lost memories
cover a patch of earth where
my sisters, eating morsels of damp soil,
flutter their handkerchief
saturated with melting thoughts.