Poem: "The Wings"

One of the first romantic poems I wrote in college

This poem was first published in The Lost Country literary journal.

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The Wings

by Tyler Morrison

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She looks like she has hidden wings.
They’re folded neatly beneath her coat.
And I have sometimes wondered
While stepping out to smoke,
If a gentleman bravely offered
To hang that somber cloak,
Would they spring, and would she float?

Or would they, could she, fall,
As fell one gorgeous cherub?
A lovely color, pale and shorn,
All tatters, white-resplendent?
Yes, the Prince of the Air
Once boasted these glories.
Of such sad things Ezekiel wrote.

Perhaps instead the wings would shatter,
As laughter bursts from a drunk man’s throat.
There they would lie,
Like shards of soft-clouded sky,
A puzzle-piece window for novice and abbot,
A brand new icon in blood-stained glass...

—But I broach the skirt. I won’t trespass.
Janus falters, the threshold looms,
Doorknobs groan, and hinges moan.
But here, for me, for now at least,
The long-veilèd Mysteries will last.

Father Jupiter gravely thundered,
“Stay far and far and far away!"
Stay just behind the curtain, I say.

I’ll keep my eyes on the mud-strewn earth
And hands in my pockets and shoes on the turf.
Let pill bugs roll along the grass,
And earthworms burrow through the dirt!

I leave Heaven and Heaven’s beatae above
To better, Italian poets.
For Dante saw, but I should not see
An angel’s face in a pretty young lass.

And if Fortune smiles again tonight,
If perchance she comes to stay and dine,
Then I shall take her coat and all
And hang it next to mine.
But I’ll not look to see the wings.

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