“I Wish You Angels” by Joanna Preston
I wish you Angels –
riding up and down
and up in elevators
crowding around your
computer screen
emailing God
in the lunch break.
Angels scalding
their tongues tasting
coffee, constrained
to “drat” and “darn”
and “oooohhhh!”
I wish you Angels staring
into department-store
windows, striking up
conversations with dress
shop dummies. I wish
you Angels with fishnet
stockings and misplaced
body piercings, two years
behind the trend. Angels
trying to follow cricket
or rugby, buffeting spectators
with jubilant wings.
I wish you Angels
drag-racing owls
at midnight, Angels
perched on traffic lights
drumming aimless feet
against the green,
I wish you Angels,
whistling.
© Joanna Preston
from The Summer King, Otago University Press, 2009
—
Sometimes a poem comes along that sneaks up on you and takes you by surprise. For me, this has been one of those poems. I thought I had read Joanna Preston’s collection The Summer King from cover to cover when it came out last year, but for some reason, dipping into the book again in the run up to Christmas, I discovered “I Wish You Angels” as if for the first time. And I loved it—just something about the quirkiness and insouciance of it, and the delight of all those different angels, drag racing owls at midnight, jubilant spectators at sports events, emailing God on their lunch breaks … Today is the last day of 2010, and coming out of the Christmas round and into the New Year I thought that I would like to wish you all angels—quirky, insouciant, jubilant angels for all of your new year celebrations and throughout 2011.
About Joanna:
An Australian by birth and married to a New Zealander, Joanna Preston is a Tasmanaut poet, editor, and freelance poetry teacher. Joanna graduated from the University of Glamorgan with a MPhil in Creative Writing and her first collection, The Summer King, won both the 2008 Kathleen Grattan Award (New Zealand) and the 2010 Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize (Australia.) She co-edits Kokako magazine with Patricia Prime, and will be the judge of the NZPS 2011 International Haiku competition.
and up in elevators
crowding around your
computer screen
emailing God
in the lunch break.
Angels scalding
their tongues tasting
coffee, constrained
to “drat” and “darn”
and “oooohhhh!”
I wish you Angels staring
into department-store
windows, striking up
conversations with dress
shop dummies. I wish
you Angels with fishnet
stockings and misplaced
body piercings, two years
behind the trend. Angels
trying to follow cricket
or rugby, buffeting spectators
with jubilant wings.
I wish you Angels
drag-racing owls
at midnight, Angels
perched on traffic lights
drumming aimless feet
against the green,
I wish you Angels,
whistling.
That poem made me tear up. Loved it.