Kite Surfer

You are a monstrous marionette
controlled by a crescent pitted into
the flesh of dry white sky.
Tear your snow-strewn
scar across rippled sea silk,
stargazy keeper of secrets.

Visited in dreams, impaling words
a permanent crushing cilice,
the click and churn of a printing press,
a production line of filth. You lament,
this carousel of curses is twenty years
old but echoing still.

The wilting parachute swoops and plummets;
fallen angel of rags, it shivers. Wait. Do not
touch. Gather the silence between heartbeats.
Surrender. Your reward? Escape.

Air-filled elevation. Expulsion from the ocean.
An ending as unforeseen as beginning. Sacred
ambergris. You cut the strings and raised yourself
through the laying of healing hands.

Fiona’s short stories and poetry have been published in The Irish Literary Review, Spontaneity Magazine, Into The Void, Tahake Magazine and Skylight47, amongst others. She grew up in Ireland but has lived most of her adult life in England and Australia. She currently lives in splendid isolation in New Zealand. Follow her on Twitter: @Fionaperry17.