Paper and ink

For World Book Day 2016.

Take solace in
some other world,
where justice might be done,
or love arrives unexpectedly,
or bittersweet tears roll down.
To fit into a pocket
an entire universe;
what magic is this -
a simple ream of paper and ink,
plus someone's fervent imagined lands.
A thread between a writer and you:
their thoughts sewn into yours.
From well-thumbed piles of story-books
atop a bedcover
on a stay-home-from-school sick day
to the soul breathed into grown-up long commutes,
a lifetime of reading as escape.
What magic is this, you'll think,
at bedtime, eyes trying hard to focus.
Just one more chapter, you say to yourself,
immersed between the pages.