A Kite
a tapered diamond in four brown
moles on your back, as again you turn
away from my cruelty: silence, my answer to you
phoning home’s accented reminders of how soon –
how short your stay is here, where, holding on still,
I find a reason not to pull and reel
you in, to wind up the taut and tugging
string, but cut it and feel the jolt as something
stops, suddenly; to watch the wind unleashed:
the rise and plunge away and out of reach
as I rock back and try to capture
one last glimpse – an image – finally sure
of what I already know:
I should write, to let you go.
By Martin Jackson
More about Martin
Since completing a BA in English and Creative Writing at UEA in 2003 and an MA at Goldsmiths the following year, Martin has started and quit a promising career in advertising. Earlier this year he won the last ever London Writers Competition 'Promis' award for another of his sonnets. He lives in Hackney where he is working on a novel.