Angels

Angels, being not of flesh but light

bent backwards, are known to slip like us, to fall

from the sky, whether from heaven or grace, cast off

like the fruit of Marvell’s garden, where apples

and nectarines ripen with greener thought and tumble

to the open, yawning sea – so must angels make their home

within the frigid waters, swimming the Arctic,

finning the mid-Atlantic, until the experience drains them,

makes them phosphorescent, their fingers becoming tendrils

that linger on the solution of salt coursing around

their stretched and thinly undulating forms.

Oh, prove to me that jellyfish aren’t divine,

that the contractions of their bells don’t slowly ring

holy, holy, holy, and that the huddled thoughts held

by bright halos aren’t visible late at night along the coast.

I can feel their singing, the way they pass me by,

the very sight of them luminous and reaching

for the sun.

Julian Day lives in Winnipeg, Canada. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in EVENT, Cypress, and Train : a poetry journal. His debut chapbook will be published by Anstruther Press in Spring 2021.