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Picture 11004624, © Medici / Mary Evans

Fallen Angels
by Matt Barnard
 
 
When God in his wrath
decided to punish the angels,
he turned them into gannets
and let them spend their lives
falling from the sky.

He made them perfect
from their stencilled beaks
to their rimless blue eyes,
from the gentle yellow dome
of their heads to their creaseless
feathers.

He set the sky on fire
and made the sea boil.
He used strips of solder
for fish and made the cliffs
a Chinese silkscreen print.

When we found one below
the line of bladder wrack
and rope and discarded plastic,
its neck cradled by rocks,
we were afraid to get too near.

 
 
© Matt Barnard
 
 
Picture 11004624, © Medici / Mary Evans

 
 
Matt Barnard is a poet and writer. His collection, Anatomy of a Whale, was published in 2018 by The Onslaught Press, and he has won the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize and the Ink Tears national short story competition. He also edited the anthology Poems for the NHS, published by the Onslaught Press. His website is www.mattbarnardwriter.com

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