The Opening Of The Veranda Was The Beginning Of Summer

All winter it lay dormant
dump for mud-caked boots and bikes
 
the summer things, garden forks, deckchairs
buckets and spades inert and clammy
 
the rest of the house withdrawn
into the sealed red dark of the back room.
 
What was it I liked so much –
the glass roof a trap for sky and insects
 
how the glass could make days longer
signal change
 
the weathered garden door leaking raw
spring air, the holiday feel
 
of doors being open, morning coming in
yellow and buzzing.
 
When it stifled
a place to escape through – best
 
in the halfway season
watching the rain fall
 
in big splashes, the smell
of wet mud from the balding lawn –
 
pausing
before entering the house again.
 

Denise McSheehy

first published in The SHOp 45;
in collection The Plate Spinner, 2017, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-9068567-5-5