A blanket for my warmth,
covering to hide,
the pale, glisten of my new home,
the stabbing chill I am immune to,
the nipping, biting, rending at tips,
no more than the journey here,
first class ticket, opened chest,
gold spilling out and counted,
only one way was enough,
White, so pure, so empty.
No need to start a fire,
no wood or kindling if I wanted,
locals, my previous occupants
came to their senses long ago,
walk home with bare foot,
the heat of elsewhere scarring,
flesh sealed.
For now I am here,
could I see myself leaving?
A tap of my shoulder
of some ethereal hand,
I turn to nothing and then
slowly I turn to nothing

As hands twist, stumbling through doors locked made of
wood pulp and ink and the light underneath seems to
illuminate the sleep in our eyes, it reveals too the cracks in
the corners, the silver slithers and the rust.

To dart across country remains the aim but now many an
Inn will beckon with its burning hearth each more
welcoming than the last. The food more exotic, the crowd
merrier.

Crackling azure wraps and warps, and their eyes glow
with milken dullness. Bereft of colour this solemn matter
thirsts and hungers to consume, to gorge, to shine
postcards of brightly spotted watercolours.

No longer can we trace a finger down the side of a tree, to
remain locked in a single room melting wax and judging
hats.

The wood swung and thus the rope, born 200 years too
late, when was the last time we heard wanderlust not for
the road? The jailer has recaptured us not with wooden
sigils but copper rods and numbers. A primordial beast
slain not by magical tome but by black powder. The
renaissance is over.