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