I’d like to think
you still have the gilded angel
I gave you when I broke up the set
I still like to see mine on my desk
carrying its large candelabrum
reminding me of the two of us
bowing our heads in the middle school
where those troubled children
called out the prayer in us
as we worked together as servants
of the unspoken master we shared
between the lines and demerits
of the disgraced who brought out
the best of us from beneath
the layered surfaces of our uncertainties
