Ways of having an angel

Ways of having an angel

An angel is the spiritual bodyguard

that protects us from material,

supernatural enemies, and those

we engender with images,

words and dreams: he fights, at midnight,

in the middle of the street,

and in bed, against odious figures,

figures that we tend to love.

People say: an angel passed through here,

when there is silence among them,

united in one body: while our angels wait

they look at each other in the mirror

or stare out the window

at the long yellow afternoon.

Lovers say: an angel just walked by,

as if the presence of the desired one

had the body of absence,

as if it could perceive what had already happened,

and they knew they loved when they no longer love.

An angel passed, says the angel,

without seeing his own shadow in time,

without perceiving the longing

his words left within,

men of flesh and blood,

looking from the other side of the window,

drunk with love and death.

She’s got angel, they say

about the woman whose grace

cannot be measured, one cannot count

the light in her eyes, or calculate

the size of her smile, even less,

we cannot weigh her footprint

when she walks.

I’ve got angel, says the dying man

searching for a partner to lead him through

his personal abysms. I’ve got angel, says

the one that dies, at long last visible—the one

who guarded me in life. I have angel, I exclaim

when I raise my being unto his being,

as if we had always walked together.

He’s got angel, says another angel,

looking through the window

as we lose sight of each other

in the yellow afternoon.