home > literaria > submissions Michelle Demers (received 5/17/2001): Everybody has an Angel They stand behind your left shoulder often dropping feathers and never leave footprints. One Moon Are the nights getting longer? The borders harder to decipher? Are relationships more demanding -- can the crevasses be filled up in time? Is the energy in the body dissipating sooner? Is there less civility in the world -- more road rage and rude radio? Is tonight's crescent moon the most perfect presence in the universe, spilling a fixed porcelain light, exactly too little, exactly too much? The Thin Edge of Winter And now the light flattens on the softening snow. Now the small of my back presses into the memory of him, shallow sea below, the hard sand of morning and low tide withdraws its full body into the universe's largest question, who am I? And sky, purposeful, slow, in prayer always, sleeps on some kind of ancient edge. And now the mind holds the terrors of silenced nights in the reptilian brain, unwilling to let go, as if searching the moon for balance, the heart rounds itself out with the scent of hyacinth, mixes with cool ocean air. Now the cat chews the hard food, crunching small mouthfuls, secretly, while the earth shifts and moves without bothering any living thing. A book opens and a woman's hair falls across the page. Now, March speaks in tones least forgotten, damp and musty, winter still breathing small perfect breaths, the way paradox fits itself into the cornerless mind. - Michelle Demers Itself The way the warm weight of the cat preserves my heart. The way laughing gulls drop their clams on the hard sand for breakfast. The way the breath begins to slow at the moment the mind extinguishes. The way the body moves as if through mud as daffodils slice through the weight of time. The way feeling like a fool is only one color of the spectrum, with a logjam of fuschia, a parachute of hoping green, a rash of pale pink waiting for their cues. The way love carries itself across railroad tracks, dreams of flying, vastness never entering its mind or leaving it, just to suit the purpose, only one, itself, only that, moving in directions unknown. Warmth can let this happen, unaware of everything but the way emptiness can be full and joy can crack the heart. The way laughter can change the color of anything. But life is only itself. On fire. On spring nights. For eternity. -Michelle Demers   Michelle Demers is currently studying for her MFA in poetry at Vermont College. She lives and works near Burlington, Vermont, where there are two seasons: winter, and one month of poor sledding. Her version of a perfect world would have to include cats, chocolate and the sound of ocean waves.