The Scents of Ash and Smoke

Homework Assignment on the Subject of Angels
Tadeusz Rozewicz
(translated from the Polish by Magnus J Krynski and Robert A Maguire)

Fallen
angels

resemble
flakes of soot
abacuses
cabbage leaves stuffed
with black rice
they also resemble hail
painted red
blue fire
with a tongue of gold

fallen angels
resemble
ants
moons that press
beneath the green nails of the dead

angels in paradise
resemble the inside of the thigh
of an adolescent girl

they are like stars
they shine in shameful places
they are pure like triangles and circles
they have in the middle
stillness

fallen angels
are like the open windows of a mortuary
like the eyes of cows
like the skeletons of birds
like falling airplanes
like flies on the lungs of fallen soldiers
like strings of autumn rain
that tie lips with a flight of birds

a million angels
wander
over a woman's palm

they lack a navel
on sewing machines they type
long poems in the shape
of a white sail

their bodies can be grafted
on the stump of an olive tree

they sleep on ceilings
they fall drop by drop