October Archangel

He dwells inside, outside, around,
beyond the body: in its smells
and spells and heavens, hells – he buys
exactly what it sells, no matter what

the price: he lives on spoonfuls of his own
advice (mildly spiced): and gains by
tabulating – taking note – of every
photon his bright sighs reflect

in startled pleasure-stricken eyes –
passersby who do not know exactly
why he moves them – but are moved
so deeply and so permanently that

he ceases to exist as mutable and living
creature – and becomes instead
an indisputable imaginative feature
of the private mind – an intimate idea –

a find – an antidote to fear: embodied
category of existence which appears
to prove there is a reason after all.
He personifies the Fall, exactly at this

moment, now, when the eschatological
October light begins to alter into new
and unexaminable brightness –
flaming from the strange obliquity

of angled rays of sun that signal
there is such a thing as welcoming
the End of Days. When you're bereft –
when nothing’s left – he is what you praise.


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