from Jack Frost and the Swans

III

The mist comes in
like a stranger’s hands

and the trees are letters
and the sky their paper
and the roads are rivers
and the cars their boulders
and the houses are glass
and the people their statues
and the lakes are iced lochs
and the fish their explorers
and the fields are glaciers
and the walls their ridges
and the alleys are veins
and the cobbles their scales
and the colours all white

like a stranger’s hands
the mist comes in.

Max Wallis‘s first pamphlet, Modern Love, has been longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. He is currently tweaking the final edits to his book of children’s book of poetry, supported by the Arts Council called Jack Frost & the Swans, from which this poem is taken.