cherub death

i used to run a video store
in which every movie was 
a home movie. we have a tape somewhere
of me as a flytrap in the middle of
the winter. people would come 
& search but never rent anything.
well, that's a lie a few times people
did take one. they watched it quick 
& always returned it in the little box
outside the shop. i think they were embarrassed
to know so much about me. 
i had never seen any of the tapes
other than the flytrap one. i don't know
what they were about. maybe i was a baby
or maybe i was ancient. i used to ask
my mother if the dead people we knew
were angels. she did not like
to sugar-coat anything. she explained 
that they weren't, that only angels were angels.
i used to have a cherub print blanket
in the attic. i looked at the baby angels 
& considered this species. did angels die
& if they did, did they ask their mothers
if dead angels become humans?
i looked for cherubs in the laundry machine
& in the neighbor's trees. i had siblings,
each of them maybe once a baby cherub. 
when the store closed it filled with angels.
i did not try to tell them to leave. instead,
i held a party. told them to shred the tapes. 
they devoured the film like wet noodles.
what is memory but a glimpse into 
a strip-mall store? to the best of my knowledge,
the angels have never left & no one else
has set up shop there. i found a graveyard once
in the middle of the woods. it was 
an angel graveyard. the tombstones, 
small & weathered. smooth from the rain. 
each of them, video tapes or cherubs,
i am not sure which & i did not check.