Poem

“Poem in the Manner of the 1990s”

Listen to David Lehman reading this poem. The angels won’t let you touch them. They’re afraid you’ll discover the truth of their genitalia as not even Milton had surmised. Their nether lips make them women yet their wings flap like birds of prey in the image of gods that lift girls and deflower them with the passion of a romantic poet discovering a waterfall in a forest. So I discover you, so the black wings of angels and ghosts of boys beat in the darkness, and the noise is the noise of two lovers where two opposite and equal forces meet before going their opposite ways.