Two Poems: Lance Larsen
Interior Weather
After Wisława Szymborska
I prefer to sip but like keeping company with those who chug.
I prefer the day before Christmas, the day after Halloween.
I prefer extra lungs when I’m blowing out candles.
I prefer the angel with a badly chipped wing.
I prefer a clear exit strategy.
I prefer hearing a barn owl to seeing a barn owl.
I prefer Chagall’s peasants, who rise on fugitive kisses.
I prefer dashes and stars in the margin, maybe hints of a grocery list.
I prefer grottos licked by light.
I prefer toy guns, the kind that shoot water or light cigars, especially on balconies perfumed by the sea.
I prefer discombobulated and skittywampus. Also Oy!
I prefer rope swings on stage and water dripping.
I prefer taking the mulligan, whether I need it or not.
I prefer shopkeepers who ignore me.
I prefer decorating trees with mantises and small skulls.
I prefer hopping around in collections, cricket style, so I never know what I’ve come to the end of.
I prefer passwords with a dead pet buried in the middle.
I prefer shaggy run-ons and chancy, giddyap skips of syntax.
I prefer freshly-squeezed lime.
I prefer Rats live on no evil star over Able was I ere I saw Elba.
I prefer hang-dog, backsliding prophets like Jonah.
I prefer irony, except when Holy cow earnestness saves the day. I prefer psalms sung by insects, their dusky improvisations. I prefer to spring forward rather than fall back.
I prefer to float.
I prefer not knowing the where or the when. I prefer turning each delicate 8 on its side and calling it infinity.
Why I Have a Soft Spot for Angels
Factor in garden statues, superheroes, a bird costume with detachable pink wings. Factor in all things that float, clouds, kites, my fear of Ouija boards, paper lanterns lifting above smooching bride and groom— all in imitation of hovering angels. Factor in my conception after seven years of reproductive drought. Factor in iron lungs, my terror of them. Factor in magic feathers that converted fear into luck: pheasant, turkey, peacock, duck. Factor in Halloween crayons, how I drew not ghosts but cherubim, bodies like insects, wings big as sails.
Factor in my uncle’s car crash outside Chimney Rock, Wyoming, spirit swirling from his body, an angelic wisp of steam: Safe passage, goodbye, goodbye, watch over us, Great Uncle in the Sky. And he did.
Factor in summer vacations. When God took his, of course he left shimmering underlings in charge: winged taxis designed to ferry brats like me to baseball and matinees and Big Gary’s Little Store— candy, candy candy! Factor in the frat boy offering to drive my teenage sister home from the county fair. Factor in my dad, who said, Hell no, we hardly know this guy, besides it’s a school night. And a week later (this made late night news), same guy crept into a co-ed’s bedroom and stabbed
her seven times. How did my father know? Angels. Factor in the moon in its phases of blood, satellites swimming like sea urchins, hot air balloons big as barns. Angels the logical next thing. Factor in backyard sleepovers. When we snuck out to raid peach trees I always felt guided. Factor in the stink of sagebrush cloaking me as I crept, protection from on high.