Gabriel

"Everything is free now That's what they say Everything I ever done Gonna give it away." - Gillian Welch

And so, we lie in wait for some distraught Gabriel,
Who, with tattered hands in the place of wings,
Will set our sorrows, confused for heart,
Anew. Far from home,
Some duckling suckles its mother's worth
Under a spoiling sun
Gabriel watches, hand over chest
�"Looks through the glass at your cracked visage
Clutching your pride, teeth bared
A testament to brutality
�"starved,
A man named Gabriel, (mis)loved for an angel, lost his backbone
On your yellowed mattress, spoilt, spoilt
The milk, forsaken, which the sun strips naked; and there is blood on lips
A shedding of skin; an evolution into a birdcage

Where Gabriel, trapped, "He is a man"
"A bird", you murmur, carving out the pits of his eyes
�"sing
Shrill, and it is your voice displaced
In a world of pigeons (angels)
Inept, yet subtle
Like the outline of his mouth
Being deflowered that fateless day
Oh, where have the fruits gone

Away, a white sheet
Holding a secret: nonexistent, despite being visible
Where have the angels gone?
�"What worth is an angel who does not fall; has not fallen
To earthly retribution�"chuckle, the sinless cannot live
Barbed and intertwined in his muteness,
You
Overtaken by light, until blindness erases all color,
All memory�"a white flower in the light
(then simply light.)