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published
in The North, Issue 43, Summer 2009
The Ex-Angel
My ballroom shoulders
were ruined
by
those wings. Now there’s hardly a scar,
just
a sheen on the skin as if the light
falling
right there had passed
through
frosted glass. As it has.
I
imagined them taking their leave
of
my back: the exit hole fist-sized,
paramedics,
a tussle of sinew and rag.
But
it wasn’t like that. When I turned
my
face from flying, they shrivelled
like
spiderplants freeing their young.
Feathers
flaked into onion-skin,
scattered,
choking the shower.
You’ll
miss the sky, more than one
person
said. They were wrong.
These
days the strength of my body
is
held in my legs and I like it that way.
I
hung long enough like a doll
from
the beating white engines of God.
(That
kind of talk does no good.)
You
never forget the standing start,
the
torque of the downward stroke,
the
rowing into the sun. Yet I’d rather
sweat
here, down on the dance floor,
tasting
the street. If it weren’t for the birds.
When
I see a swan, like a last clench of snow
at
winter’s end, my eyes drizzle
melted
light, my nose starts to drip.
Whatever
I’ve done, it’s holy water still.
I
dispose of the tissues with due respect.
Judy Brown
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