What Did You See?

For Peter S. I saw the shrouds of prisoners like baptismal gowns buried outside the cemetery. On the canvas frills exhaled singed wool and cardboard. The angels arrived as lace. Took notes, then stuck. Awful residue from a small cut. • The veil has been ripped from the skin where it was burned in. The skin is the veil, the baby-material, imprinted on, as if one dropped the handkerchief and it was one’s wrist. The cuff is frightening. Stuffed onto oil. Water-stains might fence its ghost in. • “The barbed wire complex” I understand. Winged and flattened at the same time, poor things! Some leftover specters of blood. Remember Blake’s figures like columns with heads looking around for God? When events are not as random as they seem. • The article of clothing is only half there, it’s not full, but when it falls forward, it is. Terrible emptiness of the spread neckline and little sleeve. Half-cooked squares. Was this religious fire and is this where it passed? Maybe they are floating on water of paint, pool-sized, blue and ridged like foam. You would have to fly to see them flat as a map. The rib and hem. Rained on for eons. Noah’s children’s floating forms. • Angels die? It’s a frightening-miracle because here they are. The Upper God has let them drop like centuries into space. And I recognize them!