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

When early morning sunrays puncture pink clouds
and urban sycamores stretch cramped roots,
Gladys, refugee from Rwanda,
hangs out babygrows on the balcony.
Above the constant bass of cars
and the counterpoint caw of a sated crow
she catches a thread of her mother’s voice
and sways along a song as fragile and resilient as skin.

Midday in the shopping centre,
a rattling chorus of commodities,
Jane’s mum, confused by the escalators,
leaves BHS by the wrong door.
Acres of socks, pants, t-shirts, bras away
Jane’s dad waits a good hour
then boards the bus, sits by the exit,
frets at the traffic calming.
Back in the kitchen he lays a hand
on her upper arm, says I was worried.
They all look the same she says,
spooning the mince onto two plates.

Late evening, the last train gone north,
Jupiter blinks through light fog
between cavernous underpasses.
Wetherspoons, the wholesale bar,
is shut. Against raw bricks a girl and boy
sing the drugs don’t work then kiss,
two saplings sharing a rockface crack.

At close to three the silence wakens me.
Outside, apricot streetlights almost warm the night,
but that blue light pulse on the top floor pane
across the street is irregular, as Graham,
the one who offers whiz and knock-off tools
and sees the kids don’t nick your bike,
flicks from porn to natural history.

Round four o’clock he switches off
and I am unnerved, torn from these snatches
I appropriate to plot and steady me.
I switch the light off,
go to take my bearings from above.
The bruises in the sky have healed,
the moon is soft,
but that’s no star up there, it’s a plane.