Halo is Hung Around Them
Susan Davis
Halo is there to protect them—the saints—
whose names were nailed onto the world
like so many coat hooks.
In the first grade coat room,
I threw my coat on the floor. A tangerine
in my hand, my books balanced on my head,
I walked backwards—almost the length of the room—
coatless and daring.
When the books fell, I stacked them up
to stand on, so that I could reach the coat hook
with my tongue, before the bell rang.
I was trying to understand
the people who set the air on fire.
I wanted to run my thumb along their eyebrows.
I wanted to lean my head
against the shadows on their necks.
Their halo is a coat I can't unbutton.
But their warmth has a taste
like chalk, like cold brass,
and a scent like tangerines,
like ink closed in on itself, a storage of faiths,
modern wonders that slumber inside chapters
schematized to aid the memories
of wing weld, fuselage, propeller; of pupil, iris, retina;
of the inverted print of light, of flight.
