Cemetery Wings

Sometimes a bright swarm of pennies in the grass, or

a gold

mushroom quivering in the heat, sometimes only

the grass of the cemetery

rolling to more grass, hidden, nothing-

the warning I remembered when I heard the scream,

turned, and saw him dance

away from the mower, the cloud trailing him

to the corner of a terrace. He fell.

I ran across the hundred yards of valley

and found him on his back

in the shadow of a wall, breathing hard against

the fumes of the mower, the sun, the stings knotting

his face and arms,

and dug into his pocket for the bottle

he'd rattled at me,

the blue pills for allergy.

If he knew me, I couldn't tell. He only stared

over the terrace at the thin cloud lifting

around the faces of angels, his eyes

wrinkled toward a question,

as though puzzled

at being carried away by such small wings.