Pure imagination

That mossy frog carved out of sugar,

clinging to the rocky path by the chocolate lake

is staring at you, my friend.

It’s watching you devour that flower

cup made of wax, yet plucked so readily from its stem.

Your purple coat affronts it,

as do you witty jokes, but it does

enjoy the children despairing over who will be

the one the blowing gum chokes.

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Ghost-touched

It travels up the cracks between floorboards like rot.

Fibres decaying more quickly that the feet

wearing them down can pick up on. The centre

bubbles and boils daily, vomiting forth rules

and regimes that make the smooth inner workings

catch in halting breaths. A solid foundation

now revealed to be wet sand, washed away

by the smallest hint of tide. Green, orange, red:

a progression of colours mirror the emotional response

of the gathering crowd. Someone offers a hand

but their fingers are blackened by frostbite.