1.
Angels with gossamer wings
flit heavenward
like bees nuzzling roses
for honeyed perfume.
I watch the angels flutter
higher and higher until
they grow smaller and smaller.
One of them looks back and says,
"You, too, will fly when the sinking
day darkens; when the moon
circles the Earth one last time."

2.
I think how I must free myself
from gravity, from finitude,
from time. The serious day
darkens. I watch it wriggle
into the sea, as infinite
as the sky, it seems, but a richer
shade of blue. The roses
eject the bees, their transparent
perfume wafts over me
like a mystical atomizer; particles
splaying my face, bathing my eyes.

3.
Beyond the sky, in ethereal Elysium,
the Immortals dwell. I gather my life
and cast it at their translucent feet.
They answer only in Greek riddles.
Oedipus wanders among them.
I am as blind as he, sinking into
a sea of shadows. Like a feathered
coral reef, wings waver over
the ocean floor. When the sated
day darkens, they will alight
on my back like petals on a rose.