Book of Watchers

Patricia Lockwood

The angels learn by candlelight. They dissect
four-chambered hearts and calculate
the velocity of hurtling cars. Their teacher
is ghostly as blue milk and cannot make them
understand gravity. They memorize texts
and recite aloud:

"Women create deserts where they go;
their bodies warp and sway in the heat.
Women’s voices shimmy out of words
and when they speak, you will hear the hum
of live honey. Do not answer."

The angels have never seen a woman.
Sometimes the Mother wanders past
their classroom, breasts hidden
as magician’s doves, but no one
notices her. She is wan and good,
and would never tempt light into her bed.

"Someone taught the unnamed animal
how to hunt, and now she hunches
across the wet grass. Be careful.
Her belly is swollen with old hunger,
and you are white meat, dark meat,
wing and thigh."

The angels receive their assignments:
a man, a tiger, a glass of wine.
On the way down, the wind frays
their solid light into hair, and fingers,
and split legs. Each arrives with something
like a body, and the women are waiting.

The teacher never mentioned touch,
so the brightest angel is startled when his skin
chimes the entrance of a girl. Suddenly
his halo pales and almost-flesh
becomes all hymen, to break
and prove itself with bloodstains.
Not now, though,

not for many years. Tonight,
the angel wears a mirage
of sweat and forgets his learning.
The woman is leavened bread,
she receives him and whispers,
“You are not the one I want.
Where can I find him,
where has he gone?”

Patricia Lockwood