One Angel: Palazzo Arian

One angel got it all wrong.

She plopped into this

sad century feet first

in her dark clothes.

There wasn't much water

that winter—just a few

puddles really—

to break her fall.

Mud-splattered, she rose

and shook like a canine.

It didn't take long

to see her soaked wings

as a backdrop to all

the nonmagic to which we were

accustomed, or to see

what passed for history

as a forgetting of sorts.

(Was that one or two wars?)

Strange how, as she limped

down a dim vicolo,

some willful disc hovered

above her more florid

than a sky—how the putrid

puddles with their last

reflections could neither

correct nor register that light.