I do not know where the flash comes from 
that ignites my sleep into terror.  

My wife does not see it, but the dog wakes
and the raccoons stop scuffling on the deck.

Once I thought it was the acrylic panel on my luggage 
reflecting the nose light of an airliner about to crash.

Once I thought it was a beacon calling me 
to read Hafiz on indulging joy 

when knowing God surprises us 
by awkward revelations when we least expect them. 

But I know the light is the same reflected glare
from glass in front of my former neighbor Mary 

as she trolled the Castro for meth,
a bus-station window she stood behind 

pressed against before headlights’ glare 
took her image from my sight, and now, 

past midnight, the width of glass, of memory,
between us, brings it back.
                        

Why can’t an angel be muscular, a knot 
in a taut rope hauling our boat of miseries?
Why not a baritone that heralds hope 
by misdirection and huffs of innuendo?
Why not the man next to me, the long-bearded block
with thick nose and harsh hands wiping his mouth with his sleeve?

Yellow-vested men like wasps prohibit sidewalk entry 
with their buzzing, busting pavement, smothering soil with sand.
The mixer churns to pour lumpy batter to form the walk
now but frame and rock and purple plumb.
What’s broken’s fixed and smoothed right over,
shards and shatters leveled, linked.

The angel who knows these weeds that squeeze
between the pores of pavement, lost in walks with head bent down, 
has one thing less to look forward to
through the grid view of his shopping cart. 
He resembles a lived-in couch, dilapidated, damaged, 
a throw thrown over to hide stains, sag, the history of wear and fear.   

He cuts snowflakes with an artist’s intricacy, 
the way women tat doilies, and gives them away.
Cursed by the sun, everything melts, he says,
like my thoughts, he says, like my friends, he says, 
like my family, he says, like my snowflakes, he says. 
I have lost thousands.