Angel Saint

    If I could choose， if it was possible， if I was worthy¹， if babies homes weren‘t crowded

    if aunts and grandparents weren‘t overburdened and I could take it all back

    to the point where no man had sinned， I would rather be an angel than a saint.

    I would rather float close to God and close to men than be canonized by men.

    I‘m dying and I see a light， I’m dying and I see my creator， I‘m dying

    and the heat which fills my veins² finally calls my lifelong bluffing³

    and I leave. Life‘s been so long in coming and so quick in going — somewhere between

    watching my parents turn hollow and smelling the rainy season come on again

    and again life must have happened because now it‘s stopping and I can’t find

    the part where life happened at all. Once， madam was explaining a sonnet⁴ and the turns

    it can take at the end and the tensions its form carries and I thought my life is less sonnet

    and more rhymed couplet — beginning， it is nearly done and ending， it is still being propelled.

    My lantern is fading， my coal is cooling. I want to leave this world and find another，

    not stay remembered here where only Ugandans would notice me looking out

    from prayer cards. They‘ll pray and I’ll have to be the mendicant⁵ for their

    eyelid⁶ lesions and pointed⁷ ribs⁸， their mouth sores， night sweats， and patching hair；

    so let me be an angel， let me watch again from above. I‘ll stop begging and

    start living； please give it up， please give me up， please — I want to go and meet them —

    the saints I prayed to， the angels who watched over me， the God who made me

    in his image. I want to see if he has shrunken muscles， too and know if his mouth

    grows dry in the night so he wakes swollen⁹ and cracking. I want this heat， this choice.