Poetry
Nonfiction
Fiction
Cover Art
Night Nurse
Miggy Angel
Mother could alter
the weather just
by adding jade
honeycombed drops
of her methadone
prescription to our
baby-milk bottles. Jealous
green linctus, sedate
us. Make us
blissed out and
Orphic. Mum
would still the storm
of a screaming gargoyle
by anaesthatising
the root problem: those
damned adrenal
glands, rotten
tongue, noose tonsils,
doom organ,
swollen with
longing. Child, be
still. Be gone
by morning.
Open Skylight
Destined to haunt
the whirled ward
of the asylum. Lithium
sons and bi-polar
daughters of trauma.
Translucent ghosts
sojourn the white halls
of the hospital. Paper
gowns grown satin
attire. Skeletal patients,
patently Sainted
ascending the dorm.
Entering heaven through
a secret in the open
skylight of a medicated
mind. Nothing can defile
the boy or girl
with our mother
under our finger
nails.
The Song
Heroin is a song that the body
remembers. It is the song your mother
sang to the organ in her abdomen
and we have heard it
since the womb. When heroin
sings, the bones unfurl the tenor
of remembrance, the membrane
in union with the toxin. And the song
is sombre, and its timbre brings
drum’s lumber to need’s rhythm. And the song
is a blues, and the song is a lullaby
of bruised goodbyes, and the song
is a rain dance, is a funeral march, an
anthem for passing from this world
into the next. And the song is a hex
sign, and the song is a serum,
sung in addendum, hummed
in umbrage for all bridges burned
and the rivers turned red. On returning
to the room, we always assume
the same position, sit our cadaver
in the one chair every time. Close
our eyes, rest hands on our laps, like
mother always did, and wait
for the song to end.
Miggy Angel is the author of the poetry collection Grime Kerbstone Psalms published by Celandor books. He is the host and organiser of the monthly poetry event Speech Therapy, the facilitator of the Do Or Die Poets (a weekly creative writing workshop for people in addiction recovery) and is the poetry/fiction editor and founder of Burning House Press. He has poems featured or forthcoming in Dead King magazine, 3AM magazine, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Recusant, Kill Author, and elsewhere. He sometimes tweets here @miggyangelpoet.