angel of suffering,
do not pass the shadow of your skeletal wings
over the thick bones of my door frame any longer
for you have proved to be inconsolable with lust
for misery, even after inviting you in to drink
my best wine and putting you up in the guest
bedroom.

I should have known
that no one may make a pact with you,
I saw today how you withered a lithe
young brunette with an incurable disease
and then foisted a congregation of surgeons
upon her, furrowing the snow field
of her belly into the image of a slaugherhouse
floor. You didn't even smile,

merely moved on to a four year old
and mired his lungs with so much
fluid that it leaked out of his dead
mouth for hours.

And my family, the human race,
what have you done with them
but replace their hearts with wallets
while handcuffing them to the
bumper of a moving pick-up truck
filled with enough petty cash
to buy gasoline and Corn-Nuts.
They are still running,
and still they fall.

But know this, angel.
We were the ones designed for flight
in over-sized sweatshirts flapping
the sleeves like frantic birds,
running through grammar school
lawns and sneaking into the
teacher's lounge, cawing our
indecipherable languages
that are moral if only because
they don't include the words
you know so well from
dictionaries, words like
'fragmentation grenade,'
'sarin nerve gas' and
'private health insurance'
(i know, even the common
things invoke you).

Meet me in the peonies
below a watercolor sky
and like Jacob I will fight you
even if I come away with something
worse than a dislocated hip.