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

     The woman who is about to choke . . . . . plumpish, sixtyish. She has tiny, buttery hands with large, glinting rings: opal, jade, rubies, diamonds — they stud her fingers. She flaps them petulantly in front of her powdered face, all sagging and sliding like snow drifts down a hill, flaps them at imaginary butterflies shuttling in and out of her wig, whose perfumed strands are drooping like a rose bower in a hidden garden. And her bosom is heaving, white, wrinkled humps of flesh welling up from the depths of her dress, spilling over the border.

     She is leaning back n her seat, half closing her eyes, languidly gazing at the fleeting images smearing by the train window: The little villages with their thatched roots, ah silent and lonely, nestled in some valley; the peasants with their pitchforks jabbing into the hay, flinging it up at the sky, the stalks exploding with sunlight; the hills — oceans of grass with tidal waves of lush greenery breaking on the horizon; and then for hours, forests swirling by, the pines slapping and scraping at the window; night’s sky filled with eyes, all blinking; and at last a little cemetery that has lost its village. The crosses, like shark’s teeth, are scattered about the graves, and a cold wind is clattering the branches of an ancient oak, and the moon is rolling over the hills like a marble.

     She is on the EXPRESS bound for Vienna. She is travelling first class. She is alone, save for her travelling companions: two men, one woman, and myself.

     The one man is bald and bored and reading a financial newspaper. He is returning from Paris where he bit the nipple off a prostitute’s breast. He is returning to his wife and two children. They call him ‘billiard ball’ and jump up on his lap to pinch his ear-lobes. He is bringing them sweets from Switzerland.

     The second man is a judge who walks about parks with his fly open. He is returning to sentence a man to death for rape. The judge has a daughter who likes to wear pink panties. He is bringing her a pair. He is dozing now, swaying back and forth in his seat like a reed in a stagnant pond.

     The third is a young woman. She is going to Vienna to meet her future husband. They have never met. They found each other through an advertisement. She is very beautiful and knitting; he will murder her when she gets to Vienna. She is humming a lullaby and heaving her belly in expectation.

     I am the fourth.

     The woman who is about to choke wheezes and rattles. The compartment is forever stuffy and she calls for the porter to bring ‘Vichy’. She has a lace handherchief and dabs her forehead with Eau de Cologne. She has seizures whereby she coughs, her mouth screwing up, her eyes bulging out, her face turning purple. She has an atomizer with a throat spray. She is forever squeezing the rubber bulb and spraying her throat, and complaining how stuffy it is.

     The bald man is smoking a cigar, a strong ill-smelling one. The woman who is about to choke begs him to put it out, but he never even puts down his paper. Clouds of billowing cigar smoke erupt from behind it.

     She calls to the judge for help, but he continues to sway back and forth like a reed.

     The woman who is about to choke is horrified and pleads with the bald man to stop smoking, but he smokes that much more, puffing out great rings that float through the compartment.

     The young woman is knitting baby socks. Her knitting needles are clicking together loudly.

The woman who is about to choke calls for the porter to bring ‘Vichy’; he does not come.

     In a moment a lump of phlegm will dislodge itself and enter her wind pipe. She will flop back in the seat in paroxysms, clutching her throat, her mouth flying open, her false teeth clacking, her face turning bluer and bluer. She will choke.

     The bald man will continue to smoke; the judge will be swaying like a reed; the young woman will be knitting more frantically than ever.

     I am the only one who could save her. I could stand up, pull the emergency cord, rush over to her, place her head forward, raise her arms, slap her back . . . . . I could save the woman who is about to choke.

     The train is passing through a city. It is carnival time, and some revellers are flinging brightly coloured streamers at the train. There is music, a parade, laughter, and lanterns are strung out along the streets. Children are throwing confetti at everyone.

     And now the woman who is about to choke thrashes out with her arms. Her rings fall off and roll along the floor, going under the seats. She flops back in paroxysms, clutches her throat . . . . .

     I am watching a young couple entering the tunnel of love on a large swan. They are kissing and fondling each other. The children are throwing handfuls of confetti at them.

     The woman who is about to choke chokes.