Downtown in Salisbury, on Innes St.,
towered on the median between both lanes,
stands a massive copper statue of an angel
embracing a soldier. Mounted on cinnamon granite,
they glimmer in the sunlight. Across the street,
a Presbyterian church with an identical stone base;
the plaque of blurbs above the door caramelizes.

It is not the idea of a dedication to soldiers
that makes my mind shuffle in this five o�clock traffic,
but the black woman who crosses the tarred street
behind those wings, unfurled forever, swathing
the soldier�s penny-polished face, cause and duty,
as if to divert every driver�s attention, invert time
at the red light, make us stare at the angel�s
overt gawkiness, the lofty soldier�s guilty beauty,
and try with civility, to read the tiny inscription.


� 2004 by Jenni Russell