The Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone

They won’t square-peg you, my little reluctant reader,
not when you can describe the world in paints
as vividly as a past master, your impressionist’s eye
colouring trees with bright-lit daubs of magnificence;
not when you can relay Potter’s battles with the Dark Lord,
wide eyed with wonder at the worlds within the words.

I don’t care that those words will not sit still
long enough for you to catch and hold them,
your small hands, still so small at seven, upon my arm
as we drift across Le Guin’s imagination, wide as an ocean.
It matters not to me that these curious squiggles
are an, as yet, locked door.

Here, within the companionship of our shared imaginings
they cannot reach you; teach you
the meaning of ‘behind’ or ‘chronological age’,
can’t make you feel the world is anything but your oyster
laid open to reveal the hidden treasure within the page.
So we will stay here, safe and warm in our comfort zone.