'A little closer to heaven'

The Ayer Mill, in Lawrence.

“It is a long time since I flapped my wings,
a long time since I stood on the roof of my house

in Lawrence, Mass., or Michael’s in No. Andover,

a little whiskey in one hand, the past slipping

through the other, a little closer to the heaven

of dreams, letting the autumn wing, or the spring

wind, or maybe just the invisible breath of some

woman lift me up….’’

-- From “The Angels of 1912 and 1972,’’ by Richard Jackson