Rebecca Weiner Tompkins: Angel

The angel perches on the church spire

and his wings shine silver

in the morning light. He is a man

who has been a boy all his life,

an eternity of watching others burn like

the mortals in Keats’s ode on the urn.

This angel leans down over

the bustling town, its citizens

hurrying forward, eyes gone oblivious,

glued to the ground. He seems ready

to take the plunge, exchange his perfect

stance for a more ordinary and sweaty dance.

He doesn’t want to miss that same

fevered kiss the shepherd and his nymph

were deprived of. Though humans

have forgotten how longing lets them

continue, he still knows it’s true.

Sweeping low, he searches the faces

for the one he’ll call love. When he does,

this desire will show him what to do.

From King of the Fireflies (Sensitive Skin, 2018) by Rebecca Weiner Tompkins

Copyright 2018 Rebecca Weiner Tompkins

Tompkins is a poet and violinist who divides her time between New York and Nashville.