2 Poems by Ziggy Edwards

Only the Dangerous Angels

end up here: walls eternally free
from scuff marks and fist-holes,
from peeling white paint.

Satan in solitary
summons vines to his window.
Roots lash against reinforced glass,
curling compulsively. He summons termites
with unnatural appetites for window frames,
iron chains, pearly gates.

He summons strength
to his pale withered legs but only rolls
off starched sheets, thuds to the floor.

He writhes down the hall
on his elbows like a dutiful fireman
to a room where Adam and Eve
lay wrapped in canvas robes and Thorazine.
Staring at the white ceiling,
dreaming the baobabs of Eden.


Elephant Tombs

Sometimes the picture wavers:
we become these bodies we ride in,
the stockings we choose,
these elephant tombs.

Each time I look at you
with ice-cold lapse of recognition,
an angel earns red wings.


Bionote

Ziggy Edwards occupies a loft bed and other places in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her poems and short stories have appeared in publications including 5 AM, Confluence, Main Street Rag, Illumen, and Dreams and Nightmares.