watched the footage from 1969, wrecking balls
knocking down the buildings on Abercromby Square
and thought of how this had wrecked your cells one by one, both
events sent to history to be forgotten
always wanted to see the inside of the Wellington rooms, still standing but a shell of the grandeur of 1815,
the Adam ceiling, imagine, but I should have been looking inside your
walls, checking for the rot, leaving a ruin of you on the outside, both
events a missed opportunity to fix something.
hope is a rose in Abercromby Square on the way to the hospital, only one left in bloom that year, a chance bloom
there has to be one that outlasts the others, even
if by a minute – last to fall after you went
the rose died
I went back later after the fall
the rose was gone
you can be free for a while I said