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

There on the busy street, opening the car door
Freeze frame
Then the door closed back, my hand once more at my side
And the quick tic-toc steps, backwards, of my own body
Taking me fast reverse to the house I had left
Standing me there, by the chair, looking down
At my wife’s body which now stood upright
And my arm and fist springing back from the heavy blows
And then no blood but talking, accusations, the first quiet words
Of the argument

There in the quiet house, standing to leave
I sat back
Anne’s lips replaced on my own, action reversed
As the bra lifted from the cushions and my hands moved slowly
And the clip refastened at her back and the tape span faster
Now me talking to Peter, our heads like clockwork
And then on meeting our hands pumping
Both lying, and then me moving from. Anne, her saying
He was home and as the key turned in the lock the thrill
Of our affair

There after school, stretched in the grass
She was naked
Then my hands replaced her clothes, her tears ran upwards
Dressed now, our backs led us hand in hand, she retro skipped
To the empty room where I talked to her, show me I was saying
Then the class as they poured in backwards
And hands down and up at the questions from teacher
My quick smile at the first look as I caught her eye, having
As the tape reached prayers that morning, the first sight
Of my prey

There at the opening, curled in the harsh lights
Forceps
Then the metal opened, my tiny fists stopped clenching
I slid back inwards, my small head disappeared, the pink folds closed
The shrieks, eerie, inverted, flattened into silence, all calm now
Darkness closed round me and the shoving ceased
I heard only pulsing, the boom of blood
Suddenly I was different, alone, single-cell nothing, no seed
Drifting, disposable, before the sperm, the bad sperm
Of my future