On Ernesto Lamagna’s “The Angel of Light”
February 7, 2010
Look: the angel, whose Hansel-Gretel, chicken bone finger
forces the point that another’s arrow-point marked on St. Theresa,
calls forward light, and also love,
which we are accustomed to thinking of
as mild and sweet-natured, but here seems
nervous and twitching, and can’t hold its food down.
Following Pat Benatar, note that Love is a battlefield,
and also a rabble-rouser on a cross, and an orgasm,
and invoked not as a lie so much as a wish, as in,
“when I close my eyes to you, and see Jim Caviezel moaning
like the Oriental wind moaning through his
honeycombed godflesh, and am able to associate you with
same pleasant sensations, I feel I must love you,
and will now vocalize that conviction.”
The angel of light, sick like a sick lamb, is molting through
his inadequate robes, airing out those old mantis bones,
the long skirt taut where the holes haven’t yet breached.
Because you are thinking of breached clothing anyway,
continue doing so; feel good about yourself,
consider that pleasure may carry its own justification.
He’s cast bronze, but not monochrome, for the pits
in his side where chunks of crystal are set might
be the origin from which God’s holy love is bursting forth.
Remember that this is the particular shade of bronze
which you found cast on the far side of the wall
from Annie’s lamp when she dimmed it and passed
you a still-glowing bowl; you called the color—what did you
call it? and took in short rapid breaths and marveled
at the exactness of the name which you gave the color.
Your eyes circled around Ben’s like drunken bumblebees,
and you were convinced you loved him even more.
More specifically, the crystals might have been God’s love,
but you will insist they aren’t, are in fact celestial organs being replaced
with fibrous tissue, and that love of this sort ought to be cut out.
In disgust, decide that you were the angel you’ve been looking for,
no more bronze relics, no looking around building corners,
no candles to our lady. Fancy yourself descending on yourself,
feather on feather, all white fire. You will cross your eyes
until they merge, at which point la barretta dell’angelo will
pierce its own mock-organs, and the damn thing will just shamble
from within, and when you fly back home
you’ll ungirdle your cloud oars, plant them cruxed,
grab the man you wanted to love, and mount him like a horse.
