The Beauty Sleep Poem by Cristina M. Moldoveanu

in the psychiatric hospital angels have fever blisters
because of too much powdered milk swallowed still hot
from soft plastic cups
as pink as their fingernails lacking calcium

their wings hidden under dressing gowns made of felt
they grow beyond measure
when night shift nurses knit in their room
if you look carefully into those neon-like eyes
white and hot like milk of lime
you can see a window opening and closing
from time to time
or the door locking the rooms for agitated patients

they are always on the door sill
they're the only angels resembling gingerbread men
adorned with sugar pearls
they have long weak legs
they grow day and night
like ivy on the ground where it cannot find
neither walls nor trees to climb up

sometimes I wonder how long has it been
since they did not fall asleep