Jeremiel

    by Christine Klocek-Lim

— archangel, "mercy of god"

At first she didn't know where she was: glitter-specked darkness behind and below, clouds of red and blue ahead, no path. When she looked up, wings as big as paradise descended before she could run, their shadow heartbreaking. She wept, confused and frightened in the darkness, but when they touched her she realized she was dreaming because she remembered everything as if it was yesterday: the mechanical click of the pump, the wrinkles on her mother's hand fragile as sorrow. And of course, her terrible decision brand new again, like acid on the skin, not enough medicine in the world to soothe that pain. After the doctor increased the morphine, she said goodbye but her mother never came back. Then the dream changed and she fell to where even angels are scarce, the randomness terrifying until someone caught her, lifted her back up. And she didn't struggle, too exhausted now for fear as those same feathers that blinded her earlier stroked her tenderly, so insistent against her face she had to open her eyes, waking into warmth, the morning sunlight above her bed.

© 2011 Christine Klocek-Lim

Christine Klocek-Lim received the 2009 Ellen La Forge Memorial Prize in poetry. She has three chapbooks: How to photograph the heart (The Lives You Touch Publications), The book of small treasures (Seven Kitchens Press), and Cloud Studies (Whale Sound Audio Chapbooks). She is editor of Autumn Sky Poetry and her website is www.novembersky.com.

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