(Draft 3)

“Some nights I feed angels black coffee and tell them nothing”

They smoke Marlboro lights off the back porch.
Showing up like feral cats looking for scraps.
They know which doors to trust.
They speak quickly in a language I have picked up over years,
Even when it sounds like gibberish 
The intent is made clear.
They never bring glad tidings.
They mean the opposite of what they proclaim.
I know now it is better to greet them when they come 
And no longer throw the bolt against them.
We sit on the stoop of the cooling evening
Tendrils of steam and smoke mingling in the air.
They show up in the middle of the night offering a warning:
Be not afraid.
But I am terrified.
They disturb the air with their terrible wings.
They show up when you have sunk too deep in your feather bed and were about to fall asleep.
Change comes whether you accept it or not.
And I have learned to patiently listen to them,
although it often isn’t immediately clear what this has to do with me.

The prompt was graciously given by Jolaoso PrettyThunder from her poem Ember on the Tongue .