Book

You open its delicate pages, you look at the cover and you know
It's the beginning of an adventure, a whole new world
You're scared to open it, but you do

and see words strung together like silk
the world you're in fades away
and a new one appears

I can hear tiny quiet beats
like a tiny paper heart or
life running through it
like a paper factory, always alive

It hides not wanting to be seen just like a leopard
It defends itself like a leopard
Life blossoms through it and it continues to live, just like a leopard

---
This poem was highly commended for Poetry Object 2015

Judge's Notes:
"One of the things I love about this poem is the way in which it changes dramatically, stanza by stanza. Some poems work with a really close argument or a tightly woven rhyme scheme but this poem is dreamlike, its connections are strange, and it is full of surprises. This works partly because this poem has such musical phrases. Sometimes the simplest words build the most beautiful lines: ‘You’re scared to open it, but you do…’; ‘I can hear tiny quiet beats…’ This poem also has some stunning, strange images and descriptions, which show great confidence and flair. The repetition of leopard at the end of the last three lines, for instance, emphasises how the similes get stranger and stranger, until they come to that remarkable phrase: ‘life blossoms through it and continues to live…’ "
~Lisa Gorton