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

We exchanged emails again overnight and I printed her message so that I can consider the tone more carefully, not that there seems any reason for doubt.  

It’s only been a couple of months but the days have found their rhythm and I feel surprisingly at ease, sitting here sipping my cortado. 

The tall figure of a dark haired waiter is framed by the curve of a stained glass window that in turn is framed by broad, timber architraves.  Brass and glass chandeliers cast subdued light across walls filled with photos and artefacts recording the café’s first one hundred and fifty years.

Argentine cafés are more welcoming than those at home.  At home, at this time of day, the tables would be crowded and I would have to search for a space.  Here, there always seem to be spare tables inviting me to sit for hours with a newspaper, read a novel or write in my journal.

Hopefully, write in my journal.  Why won’t today’s words come?  We knew these months would be difficult.  Slowly, I read her message again, searching for any hint of ambiguity.  There isn’t any.  I’m sure there isn’t.  She’s as single minded as she was that day at the airport.

Two women have been sitting together.  The waiter engages them in an off-hand kind of way, and yet with a recognition of their womanhood.  A recognition that in another circumstance he might consider romancing one or the other, though still I suspect with a touch of ‘take it or leave it’ detachment.  I can’t imagine him spending these hours sitting alone contemplating the points for, and the points against.

I put down the message, drain the last of the coffee from the cup and write a single poem at the centre of my blank page.

                                   midday
                         the summer sun shines 
                    on both sides       of the road