Fuel

I am, said the voice in the oil spill of rainbow radiance,
the angel of El, from the deserts and gulfs of El.

I looked for a face, flesh and blood I might hold
accountable, a name. It saw right through me. Uriel,

Eliel, Emmanuel, Fuel, said the angel. Fuel? I replied,
and a human form stood before me, a merchant

who turned to measuring my life as if I were cloth,
judging length and price by the distance between his elbow

and the tip of his middle finger. The arm wore camouflage
the shade of sand and bone. You do what suits me,

Fuel smiled. He tossed the dead man's arm aside. Grenade,
he said. Arched his eyebrows, shrugged.

Margaret Gibson
The Iowa Review
Volume 36, Number 1
Spring 2006

Copyright © 2006, The University of Iowa.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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