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

I
If only they could make
a lifeless Salamander,
blend and manipulate
layers of skin,
coagulate a glut of glands.
Over bunsens,
in hot ovens,
they could place
the leathery lubricious wobble,
twist and curl it
into a hardening gelled equivalent.
Out would spill
trays’ worth’s
of “Salamanders,”
slender sensual strips,
sugary as shoals of jelly.
I can but fantasize:
to lick and swallow
a succulent bulge,
false-fleshed,
a delicious ooze of sweetness
until my blood inflames,
arteries ablaze,
until the whole of me
is engulfed in fire
pure and primal.


II
To eat a Salamander,
imbibe its soul and spirit,
would be to consume cold:
drop acid icicles,
reptilian LSD,
bit by bit
entrails entwine
with wiry intestines
and fiery veins.
Mutilated remains
reconstitute themselves.
You will not see
the severed legs,
knife-tail,
star-like hands and fingers
woven like Arabian embroidery
reconnect like fuses
but they will re-grow,
attach themselves organically,
enlarge like foetuses
breathing gusts of cold,
thawing blood and organs —
it is possible
the world will end like this.
Like droplets of sun
pure and smooth as apples
Salamanders resurrect.


III
Redoubling
in lungless broods
dripping from the uterus,
breed multitudes
of hellbenders,
mudpuppies,
soft-spotted streaky
blotch-baked cocoons.
May the earthen walls
of undergrowth
be decked in your image.
Like bodies cold in earth,
skeletons at rest
concealed in coffins,
the self-renewing Salamander
recreates
like a resurrected spirit.