A girl once told me that full stops
are new beginnings.
Some said she was dotty when she claimed
full stops were spots from story-book leopards,
entrances to fairy wells
or the unhatched eggs of miniscule birds.
She called full stops her thought tunnels,
the shape an elf mouth makes in wonder,
said they were not endings
but the droppings of dwarf dragons.
She loved the patterns they made,
their wavy lines across the page
the shape of uncharted seas,
not a sentence end
but stepping stones for her imagination.
And ellipses? They are galaxies,
or lines on mythic maps, she said,
a tear in the universe; tiny pixie pathways.
*
Emma Phillips lives next to the M5 in Devon, which sometimes leads her off on adventures. She is a teacher who loves daydreaming and she is writer-in-residence at Tiverton Museum. Her poetry for children has been published by The Dirigible Balloon and she is addicted to crisps.
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