WHEN ANGELS FLY TOO CLOSE

Every time I think—

There—I've emptied

Myself for now

Said all the prayers

I know for you

Wept out every tear

Another indignity

Scurries forth

To further incense

Me, thwart

Any pretense

At ambivalence

Or dazed sanity

No matter - I welcome

Back the holy

Tenderness that flies

like a wounded cygnet:

Wings unable to flap

Lungs unready to breathe

It plummets, gives into

Fear and sinks beneath

the water ...

Maybe if I think of you

metaphorically,

in abstracts

the pain will grow

more bearable

I don't believe it,

Not really

but I need

to try

to do something

even just

a little

different

S.E.Ingraham©

Published by Kind of a Hurricane Press

in Poised in Flight/ 2013