Taking Down the Angel

As he ticked off numbers—
how many sheep
I'd pilfered from Laban
and their rate of reproduction—
he opened and closed
his fists, cracked
his knobby rough-
skinned knuckles.

An angel on the take, I thought,
and he stinks like a goat.
While my white wooly profits
bleated their blessings,
I rose from my perch,
took him down
so hard the breath
went out of him.

He touched the hollow
of my joint and threw
my hip out of whack,
but I put him in
a choke hold he never
escaped from, buried his
crumpled carcass in the hard
white sand.

Copyright © 2004 Jeff Friedman All rights reserved
from Taking Down the Angel
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission