I hate to preface poems with stories,
but I think this one is necessary.
I lived last year in Berlin, and a lot of the apartments
there have these nice angels on the ceiling.
So the poem is about the angels on the ceiling, entitled
"Angels on My Ceiling."
This city has demons, a German friend told me.
Yes, but it has angels as well.
I see them every morning in my apartment,
staring from the ceiling.
I counted 25 or so with tiny wings and tired faces
as if about to say something.
But they just stare silently.
What do they want?
Sometimes I forget that they are there and go about my life
until the day one of them broke its wings
and fell next to my bed.
Its head scattered all over the floor.
Was it tired of its heavy burdens?
It's not that easy being an angel these days.
I did not touch it.
The Lord appeared the next morning--
a landlord, that is.
The Lord appeared the next morning,
looked at it with no pity whatsoever, swept its remains
with a broom, threw the wing into the trash,
and said in a heavy German accent, it's an old building,
you know?
I'll get someone to fix the cracks in the other ones.
Hopefully no more fallen angels, yeah?