Broken, Mended

A rough stone statue,
barely visible in the brush.
The gardener calls her “abandonada”.
He carries her carefully to my grass
and we see she has a single wing.
I drag her stone pedestal to my wall,
and the girl with the missing wing
comes to live with me.

She has a face of maybe six or eight
with a look of solo wondering.
She holds a shell from the sea,
full of holes, nearly dissolved,
a shell as large as her lap,
the stone so porous
only its rim gives the shape.
But the angel from the sea
holds her holy shell ready
to receive all offerings of love.

I find her missing wing among the leaves.
It carries the cracks of the ocean,
I know it looks broken,
but those are the places
where her power goes.
I glue it clumsily into place
feeling my own shoulder blade
suddenly balanced.
Contentment soft on her face,
the abandoned angel comes home.
She’s just a little girl
with a listening tilt to her head,
a girl wearing wings,
the child who’s returned to me.

©Susa Silvermarie 2022