Dream of the Angel

I dreamed an angel in the desert,

astride a horse. The stars were piercing,
so many that the sky burned more in icy white
than dripping dark.
An angel in the saddle in a diamondbright night.
Arms bare, head wrapped,
black skin like rivermud shining with silt
holding a gun like a bolt
of miscarried lightning, his waist wrapped
in constellations
tucked in belts and piercing in the night. The horse was white
in the face, like its head were just a skull,
some long-toothed totem, some mask
fixed to four hairy legs
brown and clay-stained and liver and white
tail sweeping like the river of the stars.
And after he vanished, I saw only stars,
stars, stars
and a long white ladder where he'd stood,
soaked by a rain that I hadn't seen fall.