Creative Writing: Your Angel

This one is tough to write any commentary for, because of the topic. I'll say this. I was told a story about someone I knew only distantly. The story stunned me so much that I wrote the poem as a way of processing my response.

Your Angel

Was he laughing yet?
Did he have your eyes?
Did you never feel the sweet surprise
of soft skin, fine hair,
and faintly whispered lullabies?

Close the lid and close the door.
We can look on him no more.

Could we have stopped it
if we’d known what was in store?

How could you?
Why would you?
Have we so misunderstood you?
Missed the signs.
Read just the lines and not between.
And let your menace march unseen
toward innocence and frailty,
allowing for this tragedy.

You broke. He paid.
A magic number now unmade.
You broke. He bought.
Nothing is as it ought to be.

Maybe a good lobotomy
or lethal injection
would send this scourge
in the right direction.

But it’s too late to give us
the kind of protection we lack.

Your angel has left the building.
And he won’t be back.