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

Meeting Myrka
At a cafe in Omonia
A heavy, black fur coat
On a hot June day
Her skin as white as Nausica’s
A pallor that did not belong
In Athens’ light
White as the long, thin cigarettes
She smoked incessantly
Her fingers like broken tapers
Her body trembling
Like an out of focus film

Her apartment
Was darker than the sum
Of heavy shutters
Blocking out the midday sun
Untouched for years
It seemed the dust
Had gathered and preserved
The last moments
Of another life
Even the Amstel beer
She offered me
Belonged to this other time
Coated as it was
With the same grey mantle
Of forgetting

A single, naked bulb
Spread a pauper’s light
Around the living room
But on the walls
You could still make out
Photographs of sailing ships
In ornate antique frames
Her father’s fleet of merchantmen
Heavy with cargo on sepia seas
Their pale sails billowing
In long dead winds

Despite the shutters and the blinds
You could hear the traffic
On Tsaldari Street outside
And if you let your mind
Wander from the shadows
You’d see the real
Turquoise of the sea
And the sailing boats
Rocking at the quay of Zea harbour
And along the way
You’d smell gasoline and wine
Pistachio and perfume
The scents of orange and bougainvillea

And there would be the people
Drinking Frappes in cafés
Shaded by eucalyptus trees
The world alive, in flux
Beneath a summer sky

But this was Myrka’s place
The dancer who had fallen in
With gravity and dust
The woman who had sealed
Her fate
Within a barren womb
This was the place
Of monochrome and shades
The place where
All her years were gathered
Like unopened gifts
In dark oak dresser drawers