Come, little fly, dear mouse.
Come, my edible baby.
Before desire dries like paint
on an old house, enter my cellar.
Lost in green bottles and paperback dust,
fungal soil, the lusty dark.

Here the models sail, still oceanless
in the docks of the shelves:
ironsides, galleons in grey
plastic monochrome as newsreels.
I could be made small enough for their wars.
Come too, before you are too dear
to yourself to climb
the rigging to a gambler's height.

See how I have been patient as preserves,
slowly turning fruit to jewels,
jars glistening red as dreamgirl lips.
Your Main Street angel is coming unglued
from the damp magazine that lies
under years of outdated faces.

The shadows want to be your monsters again,
the twilight mirror a door
to where the china doll sleeps in her 
      spiderweb hair.
Come count all the homeless keys,
read me the missing leaves of books.
Come where the one who holds you
will never let go too soon.

      published in the 2005 Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Competition booklet (4th Prize)