Angels on a Tightrope

 

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Cast metal angels floated between snow-laden trees

like specters on webs of stretched cables,

 

involuntary tightrope walkers created by some artist

playing God who had precariously balanced

 

childhood fantasies on a knife’s edge.

The couple strolled beneath a man-made cosmos

 

of absurd constellations, their breaths rising

and tangling in wings and icy branches as they looked up

 

this way and that, but never at one another.

They walked hand-in-hand as if the balancing act

 

that was their marriage wasn’t about to come crashing

down like a flock of angels pulled to earth

 

by the weight of an early winter storm.