When the lights go out
and the corpse of Humpty begins to smell
and when the three blind mice catch up to the farmer’s wife
when at last jack has jill, and jill has children
the wolf would have eschewed pork in favour of easier ventures
just as mary would have had her lamb for dinner
but now the pages are turning, turning,
meshing with mother goose’s feathers trying to hold a page
yet the rhymes keep going, and time keeps flowing
and the night ends and starts and ends and starts again

you stand outside nurseries

and you find
that the old you
has become that of a nursery rhyme

pastel and whimsical
faraway and impossible