thank you my angel
for blessing me
with these words and for giving me
what i was hungry for
taste of dirt
from the floor of heaven

thank you my angel
for cutting off my hands
forbidding me
to trace the lines of this miracle
across the great divide
for making love a foreign language

thank you my angel
for fluttering
out my window for telling me
all those lies about myself
it was your way of bandaging the bleeding

thank you my angel
for the clutter of my life
for dragging me
to the edge of the wilderness
to lie here by myself
just outside the land of promise

Mary's Waltz

There was a blind girl with braids and a black dress
Lived next to me I could tell you the address
I saw her climb out her window one midnight
In to the oak tree scared sacred with moonlight
See Mary dance with the light on her shoulders
She has a secret, like a lover discovers her
Guardian angel with limbs white as lambs wool
Expensive perfume on her feet

Blind Mary taught me how eyes can make pictures
I showed her mine and then she showed me all hers
You have to close them she whispered a warning
Be sure to open them before it's morning

See how we dance with the light on our shoulders
We have a secret like lovers discovering
Guardian angels with limbs white as lambs wool
Expensive perfume on our feet

Mary fell ill on a night in December
And how they tried then to cool down her fever
But she lay so still like a child in a manger
While I closed my eyes tight and prayed for a savior

Let Mary dance with the light on her shoulders
Tell her a secret and let her discover her
Guardian angel with limbs white as lambs wool
Expensive perfume on his feet

Amelia's Last

these are the (whose are the?)
these are the raw materials
you and me
these are the (whose are the?)
these are the angels' inferiors
who
someone breathed this breath in us
"oh amelia, we've so far to go
oh amelia"

these are the (whose are the?)
these are the ordinary clothes
you and me
around extraordinary flesh and pulsing madness deep and close
who
someone breathed this breath in us
"oh amelia maybe we're not that far
oh amelia is this who we really are
my amelia"

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