I have wrestled the angel / and I am stained with light – Mary Oliver
The pigeons eat a ball of rice, roll it
between themselves atop concrete
like two kids discovering for the first
time, the thrill of soccer, kicking
an empty can of Monster to and fro their little feet.
Passing, they scatter — the birds — mistaking me
for predator. How often this happens in
my own life: an angel appears, holding in
its glittering fingers, answers to prayers
& I dissolve into a screech, mistake him
as the patriarchs did, for woe: off to the table
to scribble a poem about pigeons eating
a ball of rice, forgetting how seeing a door
minutes back, I focused on its creak,
falling into normalcy, that brutish place.
