Kissed By The Angels
This is my visionary pain in mostly small letters.
This is followed by my visionary joy,
again in mostly small letters.
I never could catch a baseball.
Or a softball.
Or a football.
Once in a while I’d catch one but I didn’t like it.
Never could climb the ropes in gym.
Never could make it through the overhead bars
we funneled through on our
way down the chow line.
Story of my life.
I came to blame my mom for smoking
while I was busy being born.
I don’t have proof of this,
it’s just a thought.
So maybe she didn’t.
I never asked.
She probably didn’t,
though I was her second child.
So, realistically,
I didn’t have a snowball‘s chance in hell of catching
this hard fat spherical object made of snow
in the midst of this storm from hell while
standing way too close to a drop off.
My dad used to tell me that
the day I got all A’s in school he’d
kiss my ass in Wanamaker’s window.
Wanamaker’s was one of
two famous department stores in downtown Philly.
We both thought it funny.
And when he was serious, he’d say,
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
But I did!
Somehow, I did!
I did catch
that hard fat spherical object made of snow,
although I fell off the drop off as I reached for it,
which had people thinking
I’d probably dropped that hard fat spherical object,
but I sprang up,
my hand holding high
the now-mine snowball,
and I heard great cheering
and I thought I heard someone say,
He’s been kissed by the angels.
And the crows flapped their wings and smiled.
