As a door closes on the mundane
another opens into fantasy.
Carnival arrives.
Excitement unfurls on the streets
neighbours adopt guises
their characters transformed
and emboldened by spirits
wine and adrenalin.
There is beauty in the flawed.
Attraction in his Gothic charm
her pulse quickens, breath shallow,
hand against his heart
she inhales his stench of absinthe, leather,
cigar smoke, tonka bean,
seas navigated, mountain ranges transversed,
moss and earth, rotting flesh and vegetation.
She desires him still
Her skin, blue veined and luminous
beneath the pale distant moon,
exposed flesh is a peach soft bloom.
Eyelashes of palest gold, saffron freckles
fading with approach of autumn.
Heavy lidded eyes, downcast, conceal emotions,
but she is sick with lust for his hirsuteness.
Dreaming of his scars and imperfections
imagines tracing them with her fingers.
They walk the streets and kiss in
shadowed alleyways
join the parade of torch bearing revellers
and dance across the square at dawn
they sweat, then shiver, laugh, and weep
shawls lost, then shoes, along with all decorum
stumbling through the door, and up the stairs
as static splits the air
a mirror captures their charade
until the flame finally gutters out.