Angel

By Tiare Devenot

 

I push my child’s carriage through

fall confetti—pumpkin and gold,

maple and birch, that play about

licorice pavement.

 

We stroll past your forgotten walls—

once white, grey in time.

Vintage glass ripples over decades,

blurred and burdened. Heavy silk,

a deeper shade a of plum, droops

behind eyes of two large windows.

Ruddy metal of a Christmas star

stabs in September. Spines of frames

display, I imagine,

photos of strangers,

printed on cheap paper.

 

I smell the moth kissed dust

of deeper-than-plum silk, and

hear vibrant laughter of a blonde family

behind the calloused frames.

I feel the prick of a

red Christmas star

in September.

 

I fall on four, and scrub

black floors with green soap

until oak again. I float through

a labyrinth of halls with sage.

Smoke greys corners

with second chance,

past dull brass knobs

that open rooms

of forgotten beds, stale sheets,

and peeling wallpaper.

 

The sub song of a crow

brings me back

to licorice payment.  

Behind iron gates,

the black bird waits

at your step.

Pebble eyes follow, you,

hunched over steel arms,

that gleam painfully in the sun.

You drag them through

clover and hay, like heavy wings,

forgotten to fly.

 

They say

your husband is dead.

Your daughter

angry.

You live with crows and

two black horses

behind in pastures.

 

Times I try to say hello,

your neck strains down—

wings pull through

a new sky of clover and hay.

 

I crane,

past my angel, who

tells me to look up.

Beyond the falling

maple and birch—

pumpkin

and gold.