Lyrical and resonant, this story yields more with each reading.
Now the pretty girl who might be my angel is passing out fliers in the park.
I duck between drooping spruces, wear their blue-green needles like a wig.
Innocently, her hand stretches forth with a pink flier, asking of passersby:...
But I can't hear her.
A bake sale, perhaps.
Raising funds to have her wings reattached.
When she was spending the afternoon on her cute little butt in front of the couch, her townhouse roommate twining her hair into two ropes of gold, windows open to welcome summer, she didn't confess what the fliers were for.
A rough woman saunters by and waves my girl away with sailorlike forearms.
Pilates class, lose weight feel great.
Used Neon for sale, low mileage.
The pink flier goes unregarded, unheeded.
The light is fading, and angels glow in the dark.
Taut denim shapes her cute little butt into an inverted heart.
My daughter glowed so brightly, her beacon eyes and her smile, vacancies waiting for grownup teeth, soft slick of her girl-pink gums and happy and happy and happy.
Angels, startled, take flight.
I won't start my useless blubbering again.
Another woman, stegosaur in heels, and the pretty girl pops up onto the balls of her sneakered feet, not flying.
A talent show fundraiser to reunite runaways with loving fathers.
A list of sins to atone for.
Angels lose their wings for a reason.
And the last one didn't glow, and the last one didn't glow, and the last one didn't glow.
The sun slides gently into the earth.
The pretty girl who might be my angel embraces a denied pile of pink.
Attend her friend's zydeco gig.
Her own poetry reading, entitled "Daddy."
Rows of tall pines are the bars of our cell.
My angel has degraded into a woman, furry and fatty, forsaking flight.
Braids whip, crazed, flagellating her fragile neck as she hurries toward her car.
Only my angel can purge twelve years of good behavior.
Cold and dark lick her skin.
Why don't you glow?
I pop out from between the trees —
SURPRISE!I love you.
Scattering, fluttering pink.
Angels shouldn't accuse.
She crushes my hand in a healthy double-grip.
Her braids whip and shine.
Gristle twists.
But Love, this is Daddy loving you.
I pound the whole world with my wingless back.
Face-up pink paper on the grass.
Self-defense classes.
Tears fill my eyes with old lenses, and her edges sparkle.
J(ae)D Brames hails from a utopian colony in the Andes, where everyone is nice, nobody gets sick, cars never crash, children are never misled, buses are always on time, and the gods play canasta with the mayor every Thursday night at 9. J(ae)D got bored with things always working out, so he turned his name all wonky and started creating conflicts on paper. Now he feels rotten, which is perfect.