Angels

     The police circled the stones.  Lowered brows fixed on beer bottles and cigarette butts breaking the monotony of loosed plastic flower petals and crisp, etched granite.  A large headstone bore the dripping red enamel of an illegible zig-zag.  Several stone angels lay face down in the grass.  A less weathered, feminine angel was missing a wing.

     One of the officers, carefully stepping over the foot markers of the graves, righted an angel to its pedestal.  Its eyes were a harlequin of permanent marker.  The wingless angel, sat up, had paint dripping down where its wing had previously been.  The officer sighed and shook his head.  The wing was nowhere to be seen.

     The forms were filled in black ink.  Calls were made over microphones to the station.  The officers made note of each offense in quickly scrawled script at the bottom of their pads.

Returning to their car, they closed the metal doors and drove away, leaving the cemetery to silence.