FIONA PITT-KETHLEY
South of Heaven
For the Unknown Actress
My husband idly surfed the net one day.
Put in some common words and typed dot com . . .
A varied mix of web sites followed on.
And then a graphic of some alien kids
With glistening eyes appeared on the screen,
Three links below – for email on the left,
The right for newsgroups, but the centre one
Led to a series of three photographs
The briefest warning as the pictures load . . .
The first, an image of a naked girl,
Her body streaked with blood and sweat and shit.
The angle changes slightly through the shots.
As I scroll down to reach the bottom one
The last convinces me that she is dead –
Her feet, quite unsupported on the pole,
Dangle above a swampy, fetid lake.
There´s no crossbar. Her arms are not outstretched.
Yet Crucifixion somehow springs to mind.
A hiker, hidden by his towering pack,
Observes and films her from the water's edge.
What must I do? Erase it from my brain?
We tell the police, also, the FBI
As all domains are listed it's a cinch
To find the site owner's business address.
Even the place name is evocative . . .
It's 'South of Heaven' – looks much more like hell . . .
Fiona Pitt-Kethley has written 21 books (including her infamous debut poetry collection Sky Ray Lolly) and is currently writing poetry and prose books on the Sierra Minera and Cartagena. She lives in Cartagena in south-east Spain with her family and 8 ex-feral cats.
