heaven on earth

i hit an angel with my car.
no blood at all, just a mess 
of milk & feathers.
did not package the body,
simply hoisted them in a heap 
on the side of the highway.
inspected their thousands of eyes
& wished they could say something more.
lately, i am visited by gold
that is not mine. gate after gate.
my neighbor who listens for 
bells before running outside to pray.
heaven is a place of obedience
or so i am told which makes it
one in the same with earth.
i saw another angel sipping coffee
at the starbuck on hamilton street.
no one else seemed to see her.
what i want to know is what it means
to be toggling with an other world.
am i dying or just stripping away
whatever seam there used to be.
guilt from killing the angel with my car
has been devouring me from the inside.
unlike humans though, no one comes
to remember a dead angel.
i ate more than the museum in sadness.
a spiral staircase bloomed deep 
into the marble depths of a grandmother.
how could we get this far without 
telephones? calling through the night
until the ring was just another opening.
wanting the dead angel to answer
from the other side of the other side.
i find a cabinet of curiosities
sitting at the bottom of a well.
a skull there signed by everyone
who wore it. face of all faces.
i am apologizing to the angel.
driving my car back to the spot
in the middle of the night
just to find them gone. only
a single feather where the body 
had been. telling myself they are
not dead at all. uncertain what
the criteria for assumption is.
i call a friend & then a lover.
neither pick up. i pull over 
& in the gravel scattered 
thin edge of the forest
i make my own little heaven
from rocks and twigs & fingers.
i say, "this is where my angels live."
stepping back, weeping. 
all i want to do is ask what they 
had been doing crossing the road
in the dark. whose soil is this anyway?
it is not mine, i am sure.
the clouds watch me with amusement.
another feather blows past in the breeze.