It was another one of those mornings,
and she was thinking that if angels
really existed they would try to help,
perhaps slow things down
so she could make better choices,
remove the ifs and the downright no-goods
from the possibles.
Gray stones and gray pigeons,
and those men falling fast
from an ever-graying sky— why did
only the seemingly wrong ones hover
and tap on her window, ask as if they were
slumming to be let in? She was thinking
a woman needed an angel
for every son of a bitch she’d ever known.
She’d seen her best friends disappear
into their marriages. Even when she spoke
on the phone to them, they weren’t there.
How to live, what to do. she wrote
in her diary, omitting the question marks.
She was at the mercy
of whatever the wind blew in,
yet she had to admit some of the falling men
appeared decent, perhaps were on their way
to good jobs. But history instructed her
even the attractive ones were likely to return
at terrible speeds to their mothers,
desiring an attention she couldn’t provide.
On the radio it was promised
that the grayness would continue,
and when the local weather gave way to news
of the world, citing prisoners on dog leashes,
a child born with twelve fingers— she sensed
the unreal slipping into the real, becoming it.
Did she really want a man who’d fall
and land, and stay? And for how long?
Often in her dreams she’d conjure quiet men
with a gift for listening, but she’d wake
full of worry, fearing they were unable to hear
what she was unable to say.
Many who continued their journey downward
were so beautiful in their descent
she wished she could wish for them a happy landing,
but she knew how hard the bottom was
and how lonely, and wanted for them
just some sad recognition—like her own—
of what they were missing.