Alan Botsford – Ⅲ

‘new story angel’ 

 

 

I have tasted the apple from the kingdom

By dumb luck, and with gratitude.

To get here, what we carry each in our season,

By these upraised hands, is a dusty angel

Who

If you listen

Says—Tell me, book of my nights, 

Of you and yours, for living is what I want, the terrible

Stories, the heat of arrivals against distance; the night path.

 

And seeing it was so, this double going

Of bright hunger—angels for the burning—has brought me

To the City where I live… in the distance…

 

But if my tears keep rolling down my cheeks to hide

No more what I’m feeling through the winter

Of my distress, these tears being owned are gathering in a pool

At my feet from which I will rise, renewed,

To face who I am, or have become, on this day,

In this place, a day when I was felled and lay

My body down and was gently cradled

In your arms, America, in your arms of pity.