The Wings of the Hastily Assembled Angel
By Shane McCrae
The hastily assembled angel flies
With patchwork wings red patches and white patches
And yellow patches blood and emptiness
And sun and usually an angel’s wings would
Be made of only one of these but his
Were made at the last minute and were almost
Not made at all and wouldn’t have been made
Had Azrael not seen in the hastily
Assembled angel’s eyes as Azrael
Placed his white palm on the hastily assembled
Angel’s chest fear as Azrael placed his palm there
To shove him from the cloud and saw he had
No wings and paused and thought then pulled him back
And so the angels stitched together what was
Near blood emptiness sun as what was near
Was Heaven and what else would Heaven be
Source: Poetry (November 2018)