Poems of Hope Contest: Kite, Frances Boyle

Frances Boyle is the author of three poetry collections and two books of fiction. Guernica Editions will publish Skin Hunger, her first novel, in 2026. Originally from the Canadian prairies, Frances has long lived in Ottawa. www.francesboyle.com. “Kite” was originally published in the chapbook anthology After the Bookstore Closes for the Night (Bondi Studios 2012) and republished in Portal Stones by Frances Boyle (Tree Press 2014). Her previous poems on PFPOI include "Wing loading" and "Gag Ordered".

Kite

(after a painting by David Blackwood)

 

Luminescent with night, you glow moon-shiny

as a misted dime.  Fog and clear

cold breath of an iceberg calf,

new current to ride

through the windstream.

Body banks to

fly and fall and fly in air beyond air –

cool force within the lift and rise

belonging to the sky.

Wind rips through the gap in your heart to

fill it with space, hope insistent,

gentle as a herding dog.

Exult in the giving over,

wear a tail of shifty blues, mauves, greens

dreamflying more than just a dream.