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

She's carried Flower around all week
her younger sister who went mad
to whom she was the mother she never had
because her mother was mad
and gave all that could be given
by a little girl who was the only mother
and did not herself want to go mad
and who feels she failed
because Flower went mad even so

she's carried her around all week
the two of them in bows and party dresses
hand-in-hand
white socks bright against their skin
Flower's smile offering everything she has
to the photographer
her own smile forced, restrained by office
she's Flower's father, too

she's carried her around all week
and in the first hours of the morning
is howling out Flower's story
to a quizzical American who smokes non-stop
cares, but does not understand
and a massive man
whose voice and stride and beard are huge
yet whose centre is so delicate
stray breezes snap the threads
that link his wheels and pulleys
so the world locks him away
he roars into a void until exhausted
they let him out again, as now

and because he understands too much
for his own balance
he understands her too
and as she wails her failure
into the sleeping house
he holds her hands
both of hers in one great maw
and the nonsense words she flings non-stop
into the swelling light
make perfect sense to him
she's found the only person she can weep with
and he can weep with her
because he's wept for the same reason all his life
he's weeping now
though only she can see the tears

and he'll hold her hands and weep with her
until she's done
even though he knows each second slices from him
a sliver of what people call his sanity
soon there'll be none left
they'll come for him, he'll try to run away
but he's a clumsy man who blunders when he runs
the dogs that chase him are fleet and merciless
they'll hound him down
yap his roaring into little pieces
he'll be locked away
the sky that these months of his new freedom
has been dazzling blue
will be black again, he'll grow fat again
and each evening the whisky will delude him
until the final glass
smirks out of his mirror

and what they call over the months and years
his calming
is in truth his death, a dulling into torpor
of the life he feels so strongly
the life he recognises in this woman
who has turned to him because he knows
whose world is full of colours
only she and he and Flower have ever seen

who has carried Flower around all week
and teeters now
on the brink of her worst terror
whom he can't prevent from falling in
but he wants her to know
that though they won't find each other
in those caverns of foul mud
he'll be there somewhere, too
so will Flower
and the taste of it
will be the same for all of them
and can be borne

and now she's quiet
the American woman
is still leaning forward, smoking
someone who feels helpless
has just brought a cup of tea
he hears faint baying
leaps up, blurts away
thunders through the garden
heavy boots across a bed of marigolds
down fields sloping to the sea
roaring

only she and Flower understanding why.