When breath settles, memory parts –
a chamois-lit corridor of clarity
across steel-grey remembrance

Again, they cross Folkungabron:
Sune & Camilla –
he, immaculate in white,
dark fringe, incandescent eyes;
she, feline, fine-boned, razor-minded,
her gaze a cutting flame

Autumn folding into winter,
their entrances rehearsed by fate

At the Gripes’ – Handel, Tchaikovsky –
a hush of awe and quiet fear
as youth, perfectly honed,
shone rather too brightly

Then return:
the house theirs,
cats like heralds,
rooms thrumming with brilliance
too pure, perhaps, to last

The tale grew heavy –
castle thinning into draught and wiring,
radiance to sleepless hunger –
and when the Princess departed
the Knight remained among
the tired plaster
and winter damp
of a legend grown bare