ANGELS AND ANGLES

After midnight when you are weakest,
when the clouds are wax,
and the crickets
are irresponsible angels
who have left the company of the dead,
come down to see the world of weight,
then the air turns inward,
as though it were the first of solid things.

It is true that the dead
will take in rain, fill with water,
attempt, as a last direction to gather mass,
to have hunger in the end,
to build even this:
a body, a moraine, the old erosions
the living dig up.

Those for whom weight
is understanding, straight lines of looking,
do not hear the stones scooped in a raven's call,
the humid parabola of language,
or feel the curved gravity
when there is no light.
The last thing we have is uneven weight.
It is the difficult blessing
that wakes you at night,
the blood tilting out of your hands.

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