The Black Angel

Childhood games,

played without innocence,

and in place of the angel,

take me to a grove of pepper trees;

they lighten my head.

Trees emit their odors,

a natural oxygen tent;

have you noticed the air is heavy

in trees that shed their leaves

without hesitance,

and flow with sap,

and are closest

to the angel's skin;

the eyes, each singly

wide, smarting, unreadable

as the sap, and which

recount the games,

verses, puzzles of other men:

Iam reading poems

to this black angel.

Kindled in the shrill

eloquence of other men,

the angel forces open my hands

and in the palms

leaves her footprints.