Poetry: "The Imprint of Halos"

The angels cross at intersections
to be cut down like mistimed pigeons,
left broken in the gutter before
St. Paul; shattered as bottles
emptied of liquor splayed across
the way, freckling sidewalks with
glistening visions in miniature--
viewed from high above, the city's
misery in the eyes of the
traveler is full of snapped twigs
and snapped wings and the feather
snow of slumbering festivities
where traffic stops for hoods
smoking with the imprint of halos.

Passersby let flow tears of rosewater,
failing to heal the broken,
while the crowd watching from
pews, howling nursery rhymes,
averts its arid eyes from
sharp triangles of blood-stained glass
lying as caltrops on concrete,
maiming the people arm in arm
pressing against a rising wind
to keep from blowing away as they
are consumed by passion for one
another becoming ashes entwined
with ashes, dust piled upon dust,
trod upon by pigeons and penguins--
birds of prayer, not to be crossed.