I had the biggest bedroom as a boy
but curiosity picked the box room
at the lighter end of the short corridor
for my summer’s sojourn.
I was always looking for other walls
that caught the shadows of other lives
being lived-
to touch the thought, at that time,
was tantamount to taking part.
The biggest room was back-side,
the garden view of rising roses
trying to escape the bordered beds
and their own threatening thorns,
but the box-room was front facing
for those teasing summer nights
where people passed and paused
and the paths were so portentous-
diversions to drive daydreams
further than those beds of roses
that never made it any further
than a dull brown glass vase
on the small sitting room table
where we rarely found time
to entertain.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly