Phil runs in the yard with a clear mixing bowl on his head.
No clothes. No shoes. Just a mixing bowl. He carries a big butcher
knife and runs circles, endless circles, waiting for an animal to gut.

The neighbors have had it with the group home residents and call the police.
The manager explains that Phil had a perfectly normal
adolescence until he turned seventeen and smoked bad pot. Then

he became schizophrenic. The police leave, relieved
they don't have the job of this man wearing the baggy bathrobe,
looking hung-over and high. Weeks later, Phil is seen running

by the river on a busy holiday weekend, wearing nothing
but leaves he has meticulously tied together to cover
his loins. On his head are more leaves, fashioned like

a crown of thorns, the way he imagines Jesus once looked.
He's waiting for his angel, the new young woman who started
working where he lived. She likes to swim, but apparently

not in the Kalamazoo River. But he had to come to the river.
There are no leaves by Lake Michigan. Phil sees a vision
of her coming to the river. But the vision isn't working.

Oh, angel of great disappointment, he mutters over and over.
Late that night, she does appear, unangelically asking banal questions
of lost clothes, hunger, towels, prompting him to return home.

Oh, angel, won't you ever understand? Have you
no appreciation for art? Can't you hear the gods
speaking? Don't you know who you are?


Copyright © Diane Payne, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.