Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Angel Behind Bars

Paris, 2006
                        
 
 
It was hard to tell if they were raising or lowering it 
into or out of the Parisian light. Angel that could be 
 
measured in years or tons — weather-worn, pitted, gray, 
like all the old ideas of heaven. 
 
(If a crane had played God, it had vanished for the day.) 
There was a turquoise strap chained to its throat, 
 
as though a piece of sky had been torn into scraps
to tether it steady. If faith is a dark cellar, 
 
the angel’s feet were just a few steps away. 
And the bars?  Okay, 
 
they were only the guardrails above the cellar stairs—
still, the eyeless eyes held something 
 
prisoner there. 
 

Copyright 2021 Susan Kelly-DeWitt

Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s books include Gravitational Tug (Main Street Rag, 2020).