Two Days in Los Angeles
(after seeing Wings of Desire)
Last night I went to see a movie about angels. We talked at breakfast about them--are they real? Do they have bodies? Are people angels or are they merely angelic? We were eating pancakes and looking at the beach. We discussed whether or not the film affirmed the experience of being human and the importance of human love. We agreed the angels looked like orphans until they became human. Three people, including one half-dwarf, were throwing a frisbee around the sand. Behind us was a swimming pool and a jacuzzi, which nobody was allowed to use.Afterwards I went to a poetry reading. The poet read a poem in which he compared Baudelaire to the eyes of tortured ducks. His wife, who was a nun before she married him, read love poems in an Irish accent which had completely disappeared from her conversational speech, although she was, in fact, Irish. Later, we stood out on Melrose Avenue and talked.
On the way home, I pulled alongside a chocolate brown Cadillac Seville convertible which was the same color as the top of the bald head of the man driving. The car had very clean white wall tires.
I know there are angels among us, and I believe they have bodies. They look at us from the beyond. Angels are not like saints. They are stronger, they are in less agony, and they are homeless.
Phoebe MacAdams
from Ordinary Snake Dance