the ways we are not angels

if i broke upon rocks
i would not ascend.
dusk would not weep neon
for me, nor would your eyes

be anymore lifted than bishop's
in a sonnet filled with menstrual blood.
if you moved among the living
road, your feet would touch the ground

and wings would not carry you past
stones' desire to trip, rip your jeans
at the knee. the scrape iconoclast
the scape alone at last, as you mean

to get far from god's good heaven
to make your own on earth. battened
against the shadows that leaven
joy with flesh, the feel of slattern

lamps and silted rivers slaking no one's thirst
least of all those divine makers of fools
with all their tools. if i were to watch, first
the clothes removed, second the ooze

of mud between your toes, lastly water
closing over your head, i could not reach
out my hand made of bless and slaughter
from this distance between us, to breach

your drowning lungs. i do not know
why the angels sing, except to laugh
i do not know how to grace a blow
except to pass into the past, at last.

(ms sexton is a most awesome poet. this is not her work)