I Saw One of Blake’s Angels

at the peep show on 10th/singing her
angel song/she was passing through
the ring between heaven & hell/flames 
at her feet & men with long fingernails
& grabbing mouths. Beautiful. 
She was

	transparent with a fire beneath her skin, 
her thighs titanic, she was innocence & 
experience her mouth the only o in prophesy, 
she would fly around the room with her eyes.
My name is Angela, she said, I can talk when 
I’m doing things, what do you want?
She is

          lying back on the pink mohair
pillow/legs spread wide to pink/exposing
the history of Occidental morality with
a small shaved V of wild red/left breast 
longer than her right/hanging down like a 
nozzle, like rubber/that crazy orangey-
brown/she is
 
        ecstatic in her own longing/18
max/slippery floor/guy down the dark hall 
jerking off on the wall/in the fluid stages of 
empire & slavery/I like to look at her. I speak 
to the phone by the cum-smeared plexiglass/
she is

         nearly mythical in her longings, her 
boyfriend, new job: We’re getting married 
in June/Great, I say,  : I can play with myself 
if you want/Okay, I say, just like the guardians of 
tradition/she passes the glittery pink scarf over 
the wild V/pinching her nipples like only 
an angel can & giggling: like this? 
she is

		lifting both feet to the plexiglass/one
inch from my face is her angel-of-blake pussy/
licks her middle finger & shoves it in/working 
the only water pump in heaven/screen’s sliding/
I’m bending/more quarters 
					& slides & 			      
						

she is      
		singing in a voice to revive
		all the dead:
		is this it?,
				sweet song: 
					is this what you want?
         	   

she is
		tracing the pink/of her thighs
		with small pink hands: 
		do you like that/
					like that?
				she is the next circle of hell/
				the one where


 						I know 
we either stay or go today/no other day/
my face pink in the dark/her dark pink 
track lines/we meet in her body/
						together 
we roll the dark angel of death/take her 
pocket change & prop her

				/wedged/
in the dirty corner/we pass the row of lockers/
walk the hallway of swords/the line of hollow-
eyed men/the old woman gatekeeper, wooden 
with a face painted gray/
				we, incandescent 
		& bereft/can see the door open/curb 


			of the outside world, our bodies 
spinning into the searing white of the afternoon/
after a good night of drugs/we are triumphant 
in the downtown litter/
					I am stunned to find 
my own loneliness & magnificence, here/
with her/in my body.

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Listen to a reading of the poem.