They are waiting for the train in this dingy room. 
Security won’t let them onto the platform yet,
but they are first in line, gripping their tickets and id’s.
Rain is falling, but not too hard, just a drizzle 
in the mist. They have been waiting for a long time, 
but his watch has stopped, and she can’t get to her phone. 
Anyway, they have learned to be patient. 
It’s been many years since clear wind has blown 
brown leaves along their street. 
Or maybe just a few months. 
Time confuses them now, and so they wait. 
He tries to sing, but she stops him with a look. 
A man on the line behind them is changing his shirt. 
All the trains are late, and the air is growing thick.
Astronomers have changed the names of planets and stars, 
but that was last year, or a dream. 
Asteroids may be hurtling toward the atmosphere. 
Some new species have emerged in a Florida swamp. 
All in all, the news could be worse. 
The line has remained orderly, at least for now. 
Beyond the clouds and rain, the moon may still be full of light.
                        

“There’s a book called
‘A Dictionary of Angels.
No one has opened it for fifty years.”
            Charles Simic
 
My father had a book of angels. 
It was an art book from Prague, 
with fifteen color plates – 
angels blond as elves, 
some flying near the sun, 
some stretched out by a cool stream. 
Some had instruments – 
pipes and timbrels, bugles and drums. 
One tall angel sat on an angel horse 
singing at the low hanging clouds. 
I thought I saw an angel once, 
sitting on the railing by the stairs, 
but it turned out to be 
a praying mantis, green, with eyes 
like a cat, looking down 
with mild amusement as I squeezed 
past on my way to the riverbank looking for frogs.