Angel Visits
by Parker Anthony
Some nights, when sleep won’t come,
and the sheer inevitability of death
saps me of dreams, Nietzsche’s angels visit.
They ask if I would live the same way again, and
are met with a resounding, silent no --
I am in need of saving.
Salvation is in the animal brain that meets
its demise without premonition, the same
brain, I think, that sends mountain goats
clambering up rock faces with no thought
of falling.
Salvation is in the reality that
nothing will be salvaged,
everything will be lost, that we
are cradled only by perpetual
mystery.
Salvation is in the flame of your body, curling
around me, burning like a
healing balm.
Parker Anthony is a lifelong resident of Virginia and currently a third-year law student at the University of Virginia School of Law. He attended the College of William & Mary where he had a creative writing class and published one poem in Winged Nation, one of the College's literary magazines.
by Parker Anthony
Some nights, when sleep won’t come,
and the sheer inevitability of death
saps me of dreams, Nietzsche’s angels visit.
They ask if I would live the same way again, and
are met with a resounding, silent no --
I am in need of saving.
Salvation is in the animal brain that meets
its demise without premonition, the same
brain, I think, that sends mountain goats
clambering up rock faces with no thought
of falling.
Salvation is in the reality that
nothing will be salvaged,
everything will be lost, that we
are cradled only by perpetual
mystery.
Salvation is in the flame of your body, curling
around me, burning like a
healing balm.
Parker Anthony is a lifelong resident of Virginia and currently a third-year law student at the University of Virginia School of Law. He attended the College of William & Mary where he had a creative writing class and published one poem in Winged Nation, one of the College's literary magazines.