“Rats spread 18 different diseases,”
my son Luke says,
and he recites his research for a fourth grade report
on how rats can be harmful and helpful.

“The Black Plague killed 28 million people in Asia and 
about half of the population of Europe,” he tells me.

“They called it the Killing Angel.”

Killing and angels don’t seem to go together
but maybe they understood back then 
that dying is just as holy as being born