Wooden Parapets by William Marsland.
Building castles for Catherine Beckett wasn't a hobby.
At the manly age of nine; it was an act born of longing;
something to do with my incandescing puberty.
The silver birch were all scared.
It was that time of year when the new growth urged sap to rise.
The trick was finding a tree with supple enough limbs;
to mould its bendy branches into leafy turrets
and light spangled halls lined with green tapestries
A vapour of old mulch permeated the woods and would enter
in through glassless windows and up through woven floor.
The furniture was sparse, non-existent really but that was okay
to relax, me and Catherine would only need a bed of moss and a cup of cocoa.
when done I carved our names in the trunk with a piece of sharp stone.
She'd see them written over a heart with the words 'never die'
though it did as love does when your nine, and the queen of your dreams
is something of a swine