Toby Olson

"My little angel has a face
and hand turned
in beckoning, like a son,
on my shoulder."
Am I keeping you from something?
        Blown glass or
silver, only
some commodity, he has
popularity as medicine
        can fashion
dreaming,
percolating up
from day's residual.

"I left my purse upon the wall,
car keys in the gutter."
        She has lost her mind.
It doesn't matter.
        "Something...
in the grocery cart:
all of it returned."

My mother has an angel face,
cherubic vacancy;
what can it matter?
        I am keeping her from something
neither one of us
can quite remember.
        I'll be going too
sooner or later;
this we have between us.
Goodbye,
        for a little while.

"Also, he's a guardian...
and when I wish for something
and when I have lost something."

Little plastic figure,
        near her teddy bear,
my picture.
What's he called?

"I have named him Joshua."