The evening air carries the smell of damp stone. In the narrow lane two children argue over nothing that will last, a ball, a word.

white knuckles
shadows merge
then break apart again

Their voices rise, then fall into silence. I think of Joseph Wright’s boys, locked in candlelight, fighting over a bladder, their quarrel preserved forever in paint.

a globe
of air stretched skin
the world entire

Walking home, I pass a window. Light spilling across a table. No one sits there. The room waits, for the return of lost boys, for me to step inside and take their place.

an empty chair
the echo of laughter
still in the wood

Paul Conneally
November 16th 2025