TEACHING THE ANGELS

I'll miss Sundays after I'm dead.

I'll miss all the days, I suppose.

Summers especially, the idea of vacation, the whole family

packed in

the car, my mother yelling, "Leave your brother

alone or we're stopping this car this minute and we'll sit

here all day if we have to and you'll never get to Miami

and nobody's going swimming!" Outside, the Everglades,

nothing but cypress trees and alligators.

Christmas and Hannukah I'll miss too. The lights on the tree,

the candles burning on the table.

I'll miss it all. I won't get to read in the paper who won the

ball game,

how the Dodgers are doing, who won the big fight, will

the quarterback throw that last pass to win the game

before he quits forever. Not much sports in Heaven.

Angels 7

New Arrivals 1

Not very competitive.

No one'll write poetry up there, either. What's to write about?

Bliss. Peace. Oneness.

Not exactly themes you can sink your teeth into.

I could always teach the angels how to write.

"Write like you talk," I'll tell them.

"We don't need to talk."

"Okay, follow the transformation line."

"We've already transformed. There's nothing to follow."

"Right, Okay. Just give me image and moment."

"That's all there is," they'll say. "The world comes, stays a

moment, then goes away. Image. Moment."

"All right. How about things? No ideas but in things. William

Carlos Williams, a very famous poet, said that."

"Oh, him. He changed his mind. He says it's the other way

around. He's sleeping over there, in that car. Besides, there are

no things here. Just ideas."

I look over at the car. It looks familiar¡X-a gray ¡¥47 Dodge.

Sure enough, there's Williams, in the back seat, sitting up,

sleeping.

"Okay," I say, "just tell a story. A simple story."

"I thought this was a poetry class. Now you want stories."

"Look, a poem, a story, it's all the same thing. Writing's

writing."

Now the angels exchange glances. They want a refund.

"Christ!" I say.

"He's in the car with Williams, in the front seat."

Sure enough, there he is, hands resting on the steering wheel.

Beautiful, long fingers.

"Hey, that's my father's car!"

"Of course," they say, "It's your heaven."

Yes, I'll look down and miss it all.

All the things. All the talk.

All the transformations.

I'll miss sitting in the kitchen, watching the cars go by

on Orlando. Josh, coloring a picture on the floor, industriously

snapping the caps back on the markers; Lori, in her robe

reading a book, slurping her coffee; and me, writing this down,

finishing this poem,

returning to the world I so dearly love.