Gabriel in the Kitchen, Slicing Onions

For an angel of death, his fingers lumber roughly over hard surfaces as though earth and gravity rob the very nature of grace away from him. The knife is sharp I say, hoping he can slow down, feel his task unfold like a great building of something new. He stares at the food, unable to speak. Cucumber, tomatoes, zucchini, radishes. Each thrown over his shoulder in a haste of disregard, a service to the perfection of genesis. These are God's vegetables I tell him. They are as perfect as the first day when sky wrung out the atmosphere in sheets of light that became sheets of air, water. Earth pushes them through its crumbling skin as though each labor renews our faith. Gabriel ignores me, takes up the task of crying. The onion skins fall around him in thin sheaths powdered by the heel of his sandal, the scrape of his robe. With each slice, I imagine his retort, that gardens are splayed memories of all we've lost, beds of hubris ripening, delusions of creation as though we believe the act itself of reaping gives us strength. The knife falls hard with each cut, allowing the butcher's block to echo back heart's rhythm, a metronome's swing, a clock's pendulum wound down to its final movements. When I shift to see how the onions streak his face, he turns away. The window holds him speechless. Lilies crawl around the edge of the yard, corkscrew through leaves like green blades guarding them. They trumpet striped orange profiles as July passes, bow as the sun retreats, call insects into their scent. Even to this spectacle, the mouthpiece of God remains silent.