Wings

Wings.
I think of wings.
White feathers, shining silver,
spread to shade my eyes.
I think of wings.
When I think of wings
I think of angels.
I think of the angels I have known,
the ones who never showed their wings.
They were not divinely beautiful.
They were not purely good.
There was no divinity in them.
They were angels.
Angels with wings.

No one knew them as angels.
Who could?
They would look for the wings,
would look at their plain shoulders
and dismiss.
They didn’t know where to look.
They didn’t know how to see.
They thought angels
could only be one thing,
look one way.
They kept their eyes closed,
spoke of delusions and
pretended they weren’t hoping to see.
They never knew an angel.

When I think of wings,
I see fae.
Gossamer, glittery, sparkling,
spreading on frail ribs.
I think of wings,
I think of the fae I have known.
They were not tiny.
They were not invisible.
There was nothing of
the magic visible in them.
No one knew them as fae-
they labeled, and moved along,
with furtive looks over their suit-clad shoulders.
They were fae,
with wings of song and story.

I pity those who
have not known a fae,
known an angel.
They walk through life,
bleak and looking at shoes.
They do not feel the brush
of a feathered wing,
Or the light tickling when
a fae laughs.

I remember an angel-
sitting with sunlight in her hair,
smiling as she told me a story.
I remember a fae-
skinny and angular,
laughing as he teased me.
I remember their wings:
feathery and gilt-edged,
thin and tinged with black.
I have known fae.
I have known angels.
I think of wings,
and they smile.

     (There are a couple of people who made me think of this. One of them I haven’t spoke to for over a year {still miss you, blue-eyed coyote} and the other knows precisely who she is. They’re the only I mention directly, but it wholly applies to mah Neko and the hedgehog. So many angels in my life, so many fae…)