Madness

A young man showed me pictures
in a worn blue plastic book
of himself, at fifteen, lifting weights.
He was smiling then, and rippling
with his carved body and the bright stream
of his young, unworn and able mind.

Then, a picture at twenty.
Nine years ago,
when in his dream, he said, an angel alighted,
black, winged, and huge.
He said If I see him again in my dream, 
I will kill him.

I know what happened.
The angel suffocated his mind
and stole his smile and the light in his eyes.
He told him When you wake up, 
you will find yourself in hell.