after Turner

I would have waited alone a thousand

years for the coming of angels,


blinding bright as the spring sun to arrive,

to abandon this world for another.


Stunned by their flashing lights aflame

across the bow of their space craft—landing

lights for that world. Herds of animals:

horses, humans, and fish fixed.

The angels approached.

Come angels! Come beasts!

Men and women cried out

to each other; the angels cried;


some were lost between their earthly life

and paradise and what is paradise, anyway?


Few imagined being bound to this world;

blue halo of emerald mountains;

extraordinary, ordinary—they rose,

a crucifixion yardarm flying away.