Thank You My Angel

Over the Rhine · The Darkest Night of the Year [1996]

thank you my angel

for blessing me

with these words and for giving me

what i was hungry for

taste of dirt

from the floor of heaven



thank you my angel

for cutting off my hands

forbidding me

to trace the lines of this miracle

across the great divide

for making love a foreign language



thank you my angel

for fluttering

out my window for telling me

all those lies about myself

it was your way of bandaging the bleeding



thank you my angel

for the clutter of my life

for dragging me

to the edge of the wilderness

to lie here by myself

just outside the land of promise