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

I’m suspicious of girls.

They come right up to you in the street
peering at you - flashing bold silver earrings
bright as knives - just to ask you the time
though there’s a perfectly good clock on the Town Hall
and plenty of other mousy women to pick on.

They home in on you at the bus stop
with their black leggings and defiant crotches.
‘When’s the next bus to the Caley?’
‘Is this the right stop for the 53?’
Obviously they’re local, and know.
Their hair is all tossed with ruffled velvet bands
so dose you can smell its warmth, like a nest,
but they glare at you, stud eyed.
‘I don’t know. 20 minutes.’
They turn away
as though nothing had happened.

All those girls in the High Street
walking as if they were the centre of the world.

I dyed my hair so I’d recognise myself in the mirror
but the roots are hazy at the parting.
Old women in buses used to give me the creeps
a chill to the stomach.
Made my fingers feel like bone.
Looking at me with pallid watery eyes
which knew too much,
slithering away, inward, indifferent.
Some weary wisdom, nothing but waste.

I stuck my tongue out yesterday, made devil fingers
at a bus driver who skimmed on by,
a young man enthroned in his warm red cabin.
Suppose I did reach out my arm too late?
Rage, scorching ripples of hate, cursing,
pierce him again and again
slice him
on a monster cheese grater
shrivel, gasp, gasp, and die.

I don’t hate girls like that.

I saw one who looked like an almost squashed beetle,
bunched up black tutu under her leather jacket
thin legs in black tights.
She looked all around as she walked
arching her back, and she swayed
as if her body was something she was carrying
and she wavered slightly under the responsibility.