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Rebecca Seiferle - SeraphimEven houseflies must have their angels.
Principalities, at knee or elbow, the voice
of God caught within an ear, at such a pitch,
it makes the skull hum. And if I swat them,
can they blame me? Like all good messengers,
they're just testing whether we are still alive.
By such means, the priest taught me, God creates –
all the living and the dead, just a nursery
for his hatching. So when I found a trinity
of maggots in the abdominal wall
of a living kitten, though I had to pinch
them out, I could not blame them – Shadrach,
Meshach, Abednego, pale witnesses
of a homesick God, caught in the furnace
of the flesh, hoping to sprout wings.