I aimed a rock at the back of the angel’s head
and hit him. He fell. That evening
I found him at the old harbor
tangled in the electric lines,
his left wing was burnt, in the night air
an acrid stink of feathers.
I bound his hands with fisherman’s rope,
hefted him into the bed of my pickup
and drove along the coastal highway home.
*
I opened a beer and waited
for the angel to awaken.
When I stroked his wings
they released
a silken mica-like dust onto my fingers
like what remains
after you catch hold of a moth,
feel its tiny fury of wings battling
within your pinned hands.
The sleeping angel’s naked body
is a marvel, his copper skin
sun-darkened from flying.
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