Angel

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.

space break

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.

space break

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.