The House at the End

I've never been inside the house at the end,
I don't know who lives there, or if they have friends
to bring them their shopping or take them to tea,
or if they have children the same age as me.

I've never climbed over their high garden wall
but I have heard their fruit trees grow so very tall,
that they have a stream there abundant with trout,
with colourful insects all darting about.

I do have a secret I'm willing to tell –
a strange dream I had when I was unwell,
I went for a walk, it was dark, it was late,
in fever I reached for the latch on their gate.

The gate barely moved, but it opened a chink,
but all that I saw then was gone in a blink:
such marvellous music, such magical light,
just then I woke up in my bed in the night.

I know there's a reason I can't go inside,
such wonderful secrets that they have to hide,
but I long that my friends, and all of your friends
will know what I glimpsed in the house, at the end.

This poem won first place for the December 2025 poetry contest