Three Poems by Nancy Kennedy

 

The Angel Cometh

Yes, I'm going to the funeral.

I'm going to make a scene. 

I will wail and cry and fall to the floor. 

The others will gasp. 

How cruel I was, how I spilled someone's drink, 

tore at my purple-stained dress.

They will say I stole you.

You were never theirs.

        Mine, mine, mine. 

I looked for you over and over in everyone I met, 

(but, they— all the others were 

       flotsam and trash.)

Now they are going to put you in the steamy earth. 

But wait. 

Look— your fingers are like the day you were born,

translucent and glowing. 

         

Look— your face has not grown dull, but is smooth and radiant, as before—

      Remember, I was with you in the beginning. 

When I heard, I rushed here with a choir of birds. 

See them hover like baby's breath.

Above the clouds, they saw you propped up in these cheap carnations.

Let them have at it. 

Let them plant you in the farmers' dirt.                

        Thy will be done.

For I am a never-fading 

white orchid 

standing guard by the stone of your final house —

for you were once the silk and fine linen of a young girl's imagination.

Breathless

Gossamer wings of angels 

Gossamer wings of doves 

Unground the sleeping one.

              

Spiderlings labor for delicate blankets 

to carry this breathless one

from the prairies of earth to the 

savannahs of heaven 

straight away to the crystal sea.

Let no snare or claw 

snag a thread of the veil.

Escorts! 

Transport this wingless one 

Upward 

Without tarnish

With no velvet pall 

No grassy wreath.

All fowl!  

Gather feathers for a nest.

Now, (if hope is gone)

bring the comfort of song—

for I am breathless too.

To the stalwart, I ask 

(with feeble words) my one request.

Let this poem be a prayer

…be still my hollow chest.

If They Look For Me

You are the city I live in.

Your language pours from my mouth, 

syllables strewed about the streets 

with half-smoked cigarettes, 

and used paper cups.

You are going away now. 

Won't you take me with you? 

If you must go, take our youth.

Back when we were sleek and shiny, 

you handed me a bowl of rapture.

it is now an empty nest; its goods stolen. 

Go now. Take it all. 

I want no memories 

of the afternoons 

when we flung ourselves

toward the brilliant sun, for 

it is now a dusty chandelier,

and the stars are  

shards of glass, instruments of torture. 

Since no worthy noose is found, 

I will remain with the voices that sang to us 

back when we were noble kings.

And until I am rendered mute, I will wander 

the vast desert of sidewalks. If they look for me 

they may find me dashed about the concrete 

my name written on a tablet of stone.

Nancy Kennedy's work has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Best of Choeofpleirn, Miserere Review, Highland Park Poetry, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Galway Review, Gargoyle Magazine and upcoming in the Anthology of Women Writers by 1445 Press. She currently lives in Alabama.