Making Love to Strangers
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews 13:2
Why in the slick black of night
does Pegasus, the donkey
we attached to the crossties,
return to me? He had a festering
wound on his left hock, and every
morning we shaved away the overnight
hair growth while dodging his hoof
to flush the gash. It was from a bite
by another donkey, but it never healed.
It carried a purpose all its own. Opening
and reopening like the nightstand drawer
of a motel and the anonymous Bible
contained within. What lungs hold
the silence between moments
of knowing and not knowing?
What angels might be entertained,
as the sweat of a cocktail glass drips
like the grime a body conjures at midnight?
Wholly you might become a de-winged Pegasus,
and in those moments, the pages of you
might spill out, waiting to be rewritten,
waiting for a messiah, for the night
to endure the morning,
the risen day festering again.
