Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

The morning        is a door in        the moon when his small        cries lick my
eyelid. Open the house to       the window of his face       wet already with
wanting to live. A day                   delicious with his fingers in             my
heart. But always with the same       push under the skin of sleep       I
disengage my body from the long dream                               of itself.

He loves to see             my face and its grey             swelling. His hands
clap Out the magic             I make at cot-side fairy-             black. He has
learned to make himself             the shape of       crucifixion. The signal to
lift him into life                   and still             make bodies from milk.

The stairs are hospital steep and even        a breath could Jack and Jill us. I
cannot touch       the safety over the side       that I carry my son. Each
body must have       only one half                               for the heavy heat of
children. We crack             the code of             the long-footed carpet in
darkness and slide down             the wall for             light. It stitches the
eye-sill open with                                           wifely sense.

We come to the cold breath of the floor.             The faces of time are from
Fairy-tales. You must put yourself into                                     his mouth
to stop the pain                                                                         of learning
to speak. You must solidify angels and mathematics in his wet chain of
                                                                                               events.

You must       accept thoughtlessness : don’t turn       on the television.
Hundreds of holy       particles glitter from the nipple       he gluts in
time. This pattern of silence       is much like a quilt       a piece donated
by many women all sewing their fingers to the fabric but only bleeding
                                                                                         lightly from
lips and eyes. You collect                         dirty syllables in the loving
of your pink hands                               and the places that will only be
clean when you learn to drown.

My eyes are a stencil       of sleep and the recipe for       tears is a diary
in my kitchen. You’ll have to explain                the stickiness of whispers in
the toy-box words                   but you must never throw them             or
put them in your mouth. They are       stones and bones.             And
watch for the edges                         of houses             for they can stun
you.                   In the pictures your fingers wilt be sticks and your hair
will go on forever.

If I cannot sing                   lullabies I will die             but I will have time to
go slowly. Soft apocalypse.       Making up the house’s mind. The memory of
months in water nine months          countless housed in          water comes
back and continues                   to teach you things you needed            to
live to learn.                   The nursery has a dull pink rhythm. Listen sent-i-
ment, sent-i-ment.  If you put on a new dress it will be wet within a breath.
A stain spreads over your breast like the map of an undiscovered country
                                                                                         traced with
a fingertip in damp sand where only the two of you live.

You are the sealer       of spells and the maker of strange deals in milk and
intimidation.             The stairs outside his bedroom croak like souls
when you step on             their uncovered faces. Laying him       down is
a form of breathing and a form                                                 of loss.
Lullaby him with the dream of sleep                         that you will not get
as you listen to him sleeping. He pulls             the knitted softness into
his mouth. When you come to him later             his fingers have come out
through the spaces.