Well, if not “finish” then “bring to a resting place, like a man who needs to catch his breath after a wrestling match”

One pesky issue is voice. It began as a dramatic monologue in Jacob’s telling (“My hip was hurting pretty bad”), segued to the second person and back again (“Angels are over-rated”), and now I’m suddenly struck by the possibility of rendering it entirely from the angel’s point of view.
I could at last solve the ancient mystery of why they fight to a stalemate, for example. I mean, seems like any angel worth his salt, if he wasn’t just pretending to want to overcome his human opponent, would just carry him a couple hundred feet up and drop him. So why all the drama?
I could conveniently reveal God’s intentions without beating around the bush, which would likely mean all the poem’s surprises would have to come from Jacob.

Unfortunately he’s not terribly likable in the first place.

And I’m still dogged by my memory of that Jacob Epstein carving in the Tate…trying to squeeze the learning from it.

Give me a day.