My peculiar angel waits 

outside with a wing 

pressed against a French door. 

She is droopy but as familiar 

as the down on my face. 

Four yellow finches fly 

and try to catch her eye. 

When I was seven, I spotted 

one angel who flew out of a tree 

in the forest I pretended was mine. 

Now she is this old friend 

who skulks around 

like an impoverished undertaker 

waiting for the next body. 

She counts the finches 

and slides her wing against the glass. 

On this night when sleep eludes me, 

I invite her in. I have waited six decades. 

She covers me with feathers 

where my rage and shame build homes. 

She summons a breeze that glides 

these nests out the open door. 

I feel naked and chilly.

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Kristy Snedden is a therapist and poet whose work is widely published nationally and internationally. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Kristy is the winner of the Small Orange Emerging Woman poet prize (2023). Her poetry has been short-listed for the Headlight Review Chapbook Prize and the Flume Poetry Prize and won an Honorable Mention in the Writer’s Digest Annual Poetry contest. She spends her free time hiking near her home in the foothills of Appalachia and listening to her husband and their dog tell tall tales.