Member Poem

we make our own rules here with our
river mud wings and teeth of mica, with
our voices like the sound of deer running.

we say no romance, because we are not
made of blood & fumbling like human
men, but when god is in the battlefield

disguised as medical threat & we’re
perched on a far-off rooftop together, just us
two, listening to the constellations hymn

in binary code while the kids we guard
sleep heavy through the night, well. can you
blame us for a slip here and there?

men think angels were constructed before
mortals, & that’s true. if i search back i can
still remember how this universe

shuddered when it took it’s first breath,
all the helium atoms like chicory unfurling
their tiny bodies. but men also think of us

angels as cold: bolts of blue silk or gathering
of iron nails. i’ll tell you three secrets.
when god brushed the dark onto goldfinch

wings, i wept for beauty. when another
guardian angel kissed my blackberry thorn
mouth, i grinned for the tenderness in her.

when we hover just outside the saltwater
& moonlight gates to heaven, we are not
closed off, only admiring for a moment

before returning to watch the wine-dark
laughter of sleepless cities, the un-
restrained thrumming of light pollution,

all these eons of glimmering clay.