BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

for they were sought for their magic and slaughtered on sight. Mundane realism ensued and as ruler you were enslaved, imprisoned by your own rules.

You and your desolate shop-widow reflection would walk side by side, as your parole officer and you lay in the midst of your room’s grey carpet, soaking in the tufts, home to dust mites, making peace with them, calling them family.

And as the earth returned to calmly dress itself in white, you realised you wanted your fairytale to have a happy ever after, and so stopped laying down the brickwork before it could cement itself, or at least tried to.

You caught a glimpse

Of all the people going out that night in an instance of the folklore genre in children’s literature, perceived both by the teller and the hearer.

One day you trained and rode a dragon.

Except that was a tale of one hundred years, which is difficult to trace, because only some forms survive, and so far nothing’s happened in threes or sevens in this poem. But wishes are always granted.

Long ago there was no princess, but within each brick there lay a house for a queen, in each and every building, and soon enough the floor plans were altered.

You created a love for yourself and constructed your empire without military conquests, but by expanding and sharing land instead, humble in the knowledge it could have ended differently.

For you are the king.