Bathed in sepia lamplight,
the skin tingled,
the spirit sighed in its sheath,
all was glimmering and gilded,
and the branched bars became
too much to bear,
when stacked so high.
Under their long skeleton boughs,
shadows shrunk and lost
their cool blue,
leaving exposed all the sheltered bodies
that dissipate through the hours, only dissolving
in the company of leaves,
until all gathered-close
in purple pools of night,
fanged beasts,
like dead languages,
creep out through the white pages,
now folded, and saved. A place
keep our warmth inside.
Painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
