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Fallen

angels

look like

flakes of soot

abacuses

cabbage leaves

stuffed with black rice

hail

painted red

blue flames

with yellow tongues

fallen angels

look like

ants

moons wedged beneath

the green fingernails of the dead

angels in heaven

look like the inner thighs

of an underage girl

like stars

they shine in shameful places

they are pure like triangles and circles

with silence

inside them

fallen angels

are like the open windows of a morgue

like cows' eyes

like the skeletons of birds

like falling planes

like flies on the lungs of fallen soldiers

like streaks of autumn rain

connecting lips with birds taking flight

over a woman's palm

wander

a million angels

devoid of belly buttons

they type on sewing machines

long poems in the shape

of a white sail

their bodies can be grafted

onto the trunk of an olive tree

they sleep on ceilings

falling drop by drop

Homework Assignment on the Subject of Angels

Joanna Trzeciak, translation from
the Polish written by Tadeusz Rózewicz

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