by Joshua Gage
The angels arrive to roll back the stone of your sins, to peel away all that is human until you open like a psalter to anything in want of shelter. They test you, probes of divine light after the promise of nectar and a scent that would stir even God to dancing. Their fingers are slow but the skin is patient and pulls back to a constellated sky swollen on holy water turned red with desire. A mouth forms at the seams of your flesh and the arterial tongue strains to whisper a prayer of soft and fragrant asylum.
Joshua Gage is an ornery curmudgeon from Cleveland. His newest chapbook, blips on a screen, is available on Cuttlefish Books. He is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Naropa University. He has a penchant for Pendleton shirts, Ethiopian coffee, and any poem strong enough to yank the breath out of his lungs.