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

She was a real doll in those early days.
State-of-the-art latex skin, primrose hair precision-rooted in so many convincing ways. The ideal no-maintenance, ever-ready babe for a footloose lad in a one-bed pad. As she lay without crumpling his nylon sheets with her plump and spongeable hips, a satisfied smile sphynxed the constant of her carmine rubber lips. Not bad. No, not at all bad. Still, she was none too flexible. If not tied safely to the bedhead or behind his ears, her arms would jerk out suddenly in a peak of unrestraint. At first, this so encouraged him he almost shed grateful tears. Then it became a bit of a bind, a cause if you like, for complaint. And she was large - looming even, like the worst of 5 a.m. fears. Late at night as he pawed through paperbacks, her shadow would stalk him - all hulk, no noise - flung flat against the wall by the anglepoise. And, in the early hours when he bumbled in sated with faithlessness, her bulk pulsed betrayal from the corner chair. No space in the wardrobe - no room to bundle her there. Sulphuric solved that - slurried her along with his conscience down the plughole. Now her wiry skeleton hangs his ready-to-wear.


She rematerialised in plastic.
Shiny PVC. Physically fantastic as a matter of fact. Blue eyes stared in adoration, beestung lips ringed a silent ‘Oh!’ in amazed and appreciative tact. He’d blow her up, then crush the breath right out of her - watch her thighs heave then subside. Best of all, he’d roll her up in a Sainsbury’s bag and tuck her snug with the fluffballs under the bed, his deflatable flat-packed bride. But as time breezed by, she seemed harder to please. Her bounciness started to slip; her succulent lips lost their grip. Sometimes he could swear to a bit of a chill about her slidy, sagbaggy flesh. And she’d wheeze. In the bath churlish bubbles would blight his style every time he tried to get fresh. One night at passion’s height, she blew back. In the face of flack he had to let her go. Discreetly in a binliner, so


she’s been paper for some years now.
Tucked up in his diary she leads an absorbing life, blotting out his nightmares, page-marking his dreams and interlacing his inner strife. She knows his yearnings, dreads, regrets. And she knows about the others - no sweat, no threats. When he unfolds her and spreads her before him, she barely shudders as his shaking fingers trace her creases. She simply lets him stroke her faded, crumpled face wherever, whenever he pleases. If she moistens as he whispers her secret, ordinary name, his eyes are too blurred to see. Yet this time, he knows it’s forever. No need to arrange disposal. They’re falling apart together.