from The Talk

An angel’s gender describes resemblance to.
I came up with this tangent casting a gentle ripple that did not disturb
the ducks, their familial syntax, their taxonomies, sentences
whispered to the boy in such a way that he could not hear,
though he sat in the boat with me. Really creepy, he would
have thought, but I don’t give these assignations
to anyone but you, these constant convolutions
in which we sulk and confer, my unconscious, invited guest.
Your presence would terrify the boy, or bore
his grimacing wit to another sip of Pepsi
from the can he eyed in the bait shop after a gaze full
of the living chubs and crawdads, the worms’ carton communities,
and on the wall the polished muskellunge with breathing scales
that he went to touch, until you flashed in its eye
a demonstrative noli me tangere, another unnamable face the boy must face
without a mask, the honeyed words, and the winged ships of lies.

~~~~

Angels give birth at sanitized altars.
Had I but time enough, boy, and a world to ravage
beyond the thick knots of my own blood, she’d have me on the hood
of the Honda, and conceive a horse.
Or so I would say to the boy, if he would understand the hoof
unlocks itself from age to age, and that an old man’s feet
consist of twenty or more molted wrappings of memory
shed so distance may approach the skin.
Only the wearily ironical old man can recognize his own hooves,
though they’ve gone and he’s too tired to see how funny that is.
Therefore, boy, I could say, you’re screwed in your unscrewing
and too busy with your fuss to notice the blistery mess you leave.
Disgusting, the boy would think, but won’t,
because I leave him to his sofa bucking
and run the streets bashing my heels on the concrete until I hear them clop.

~~~~

The only angel is the angle of deliverance.
If a boy leaves by train at a volatile speed
he will kill a man on his Sunday morning drive.
These circumstances are arbitrary and certain,
as the forecast always gets it wrong.
Such is going down the mountain,
the roof, the slanted rain: the friction
of the isosceles that is half the friction
of a pair of wings that would lead the boy
upward from the wreckage, though for
now it’s the other half the boy wants,
the sinking flame flagging under.





Matthew Henriksen co-edits Typo and has work online most recently in Octopus,storySouth, and 42Opus. He also hosts The Burning Chair Readings in New York City and teaches at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Harlem.



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