Daniel Barnum

I’m the One Who Gripped You Tight and Raised You from Perdition

(the Angel Castiel, ca. 400,000,000 BCE–November 5, 2020 CE, “Supernatural”)

an old story ; I knew what would happen since it happened
to me : an angel falls in love with a man
who cannot admit it despite all evidence , which means , the moment
the seraph confesses , everything is damned for ever
after . I was waiting for a phone call a text something to puzzle days
about , a signal over the radio frequency that replaces thought
if will becomes too free . instead , just the cloud of unknowing
I’ve got for a mind running on empty then out
of actual nowhere: baby – what he called his car – let’s go
for a ride : he showed up unheralded outside the erebus
I slept in the long months when he was gone . immortality had been a season
spent watching reruns before changing channels
& seeing the first face I had ever noticed , like god fucked up
the man-making machine that day , but in a good way –
you get what I mean ? it’s difficult for angels to ever feel truly
understood by earthly beings , which is why , for him , I spoke
in the dulcet monotone known to calm the fear & trembling
that crumbles most men in my presence . his own voice sunk
the octave to toughen him in public – some gruff mask he took off
only when we were alone in his family home , the bunker
we’d disappear down the stairs into , that warded circle of earth ;
the bench seat of his stick- shift sedan ; or this time , the abandoned
train tracks in the woods of purgatory where we replayed our favorite
episodes . this was the end of the road : the trestle
bridge out before us , the path winnowing to a single bright point
in the distance . the eye of heaven enrapt at our undoing.
of course , it was true whether or not he said it . in an earlier plot
from the same story , the prophet wrestles his messenger into sub-
mission , which is a kind of unspoken love . in ours , the angel returns
to outer darkness : the final hell of god & man’s silence .