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

It is hot today. Everything slowed to a crawl. Even the ants
and spiders seem to be moving with less industry than usual.
Butterflies jerking around on the tiny boosts of air
that pass for a breeze, zipping up and down as if they were on strings.
My next-door-neighbour is in his back garden, hunting
for something in the shed. It's obvious he should be at work.
He's in his shirtsleeves and a silk tie. (Who
goes looking for things in a shed in shirtsleeves and a silk tie?)
It's 2:30 in the afternoon and unspeakably hot.

The trees are still. The cat is slumped in a tiny patch of shade
in one of the flowerbeds. I can almost feel her
sucking the last few atoms of coolness out of the earth.
If I look over to the park there's no-one there; no-one
under the big chestnut trees; no-one splayed out in the sun.

My next-door-neighbour has found whatever it was he was after.
It looks like some kind of tin, about the same size as a shoe-box.
It makes a rattling sound as he carries it back into the house.
I imagine it to be full of screws or nails, but I could be wrong.
It might be shells or sharks' teeth or gold moidores.
Although I think this is unlikely; my next-door-neighbour
is an invariably practical man who sees more to praise
in a Black & Decker Workmate than a Lalique vase.

From somewhere a few clouds have bubbled up.
Occasionally one of them slips in front of the sun
and a gauzy shadow falls over everything like a shallow sigh of relief.
But only for a moment. I can hear my next-door-neighbour
start his car and drive off. All of which adds weight to my theory.