Biting Off her Own Wing

the Angel succumbs

to the flightless endurance

of separation,

leaving behind

not only all the old games

and fancies

but also the so many

wonderful delicious

pantomimes of religion and war.

Marauding mobs of so-calleds

spit language and decoration

and devise assaulting rituals

to practice on the psyches of peers

who do not fly the same direction,

while they themselves

deteriorate in closet self-admonishment.

Feathers still stuck to her lips,

the Angel coughs and spews

the beauty and terror

of her own power

and finds embedded in her own soul

the rhythm and rush

of wings incarnate

still beating