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

Her shriek from the kitchen
coincided with the bit where
Bond was tobogganing to safety
in a cello case with flailing blonde,
and though he doesn’t even like the thought
to cross his mind, he hesitated
just a second, or fraction of a second,
the spilt chip oil frying his wife’s thigh,
to see Sean Connery (I think it was)
swoop over the border to safety.
Still, such viewing is bound to inspire
in the dash to the General,
and he brings the car to rest
with a satisfying wail
on the words BULANCE KEE CLE R.
She’s soon inside,
and, twenty minutes later,
being treated by a man with bags
like hot air balloons beneath his eyes,
who says it’s not a pretty sight
and she’s under observation
until tomorrow, but in no danger,
so he might as well go,
which he does with a kiss
and the minimum of fuss.

So our hero arrives home
to find the TV’s onto Birds of a Feather,
and he thinks, just for a moment,
that if he’d only thought about it,
he could have set the video
and watched the rest of the film now,
and then he decides he never thought that,
and leaving the mess in the kitchen,
he climbs the stairs to bed.
It’s not all bad news, however,
there’s a big fat silver lining
in the fact that she never touches a chip pan
again, and since his arteries were a fib pastry
layer of cholesterol away from a terminal clogging
that day, the whole thing saved his life,
or rather eked out his existence.
But this he doesn’t see.
Nor his wife’s legs in hot weather,
when other women wear shorts.