Angels

Elliot Ray Neiderland, home from college

one winter, hauling a load of Herefords

from Hogtown to Guymon with a pint of

Ezra Brooks and a copy of Rilke’s Duineser

Elegien on the seat beside him, saw the ass-end

of his semi gliding around in the side mirror

as he hit ice and knew he would never live

to see graduation or the castle at Duino.

In the hospital, head wrapped like a gift

(the nurses had stuck a bow on top), he said

four flaming angels crouched on the hood, wings

spread so wide he couldn’t see, and then

the world collapsed. We smiled and passed a flask

around. Little Bill and I sang Your Cheatin’

Heart and laughed, and then a sudden quiet

put a hard edge on the morning and we left.

Siehe, ich lebe, Look, I’m alive, he said,

leaping down the hospital steps. The nurses

waved, white dresses puffed out like pigeons

in the morning breeze. We roared off in my Dodge,

Behold, I come like a thief! he shouted to the town

and gave his life to poetry. He lives, now,

in the south of France. His poems arrive

by mail, and we read them and do not understand.

Source: The Arrival of the Future (Alice James Books, 2000)