watched the footage from 1969
wrecking balls knocking down the buildings
on Abercromby square, they had wrecked your cells
one by one, events sent to history to be forgotten
i had always wanted to see the inside of the Wellington rooms, still
standing but a shell of the grandeur of 1815, the adam ceiling
imagine i could have spent that time looking inside your walls,
checking for the rot leaving a ruin of you outside
events of opportunity to fix something, missed
Hope was this rose in Abercromby Square
on the way to the hospital
the 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 to check after the fall
the rose was gone, you can be free for a while, I said