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

This is the Good Life, surely, this first meal – bread, eggs, smoked meats, tea from the green mountains the English found in China. With a good preface, this single moment becomes a volume in our Encyclopedia. The longer one looks, the more clearly one sees my red coat, the spinning skaters. Except, there is no ice, not any more, and already you’ve forgotten there was even a winter. Moment becomes skeleton, then mere femur. Time, that traitor, steps in and the very page is emptied. A year later, frank confession: we rarely eat breakfast together any more.

But nothing is lost in God’s universe, not really. It only takes concentration, like playing chess blind, like choosing the right pet, to bring a moment back, to make it even better this time. Watch, I name you with my stories, my mouth a spider nesting, weaving hatch. Like any gesture, this is a gift – gift a synonym for obligation, for all the things we’ve been saving and not wearing. This time we might become minnows in a bowl of water. I could drop a stone in, and open us both to life’s randomness and collaboration.

But I won’t. Instead have our morning back. Orange juice this time, dried figs. Untie the ribbon, open the box, and you’ll find I am there, dancing and cooking, my food, my fury, guarding against all possible losses. And you are there too, still asleep in our bed. You are dreaming, happy that in a moment I will wake you. This morning my gift, not a watch, not a flower, but a magnifying glass.