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

       Snow lands soft as cats’ paws on my shoulders, my hair, on the domed roof of the Opera House.  The fenced-in saplings planted along the street seem vulnerable, their branches black under the tooth-pasting of snow.  Christmas has been eaten, drunk, opened, admired, put to one side.  The fresh, cold air of afternoon walks has calmed us; the honest greyness of winter skies. Only one last Christmas tradition to uphold.  The visit to the opera, to the matinee of Der Rosenkavalier.

       Eyebrows were raised when I said I’d invited you to join me this year.  Oh, your toy boy.

       And now, with only ten minutes to go, you haven’t arrived. I think I knew you wouldn’t.  Not just because I had to work hard to extract a ‘yes’ from you - opera’s not my thing - but because I think you’ve been trying, and failing, to tell me something else.  Time’s up. I shall have to sell your ticket.  Perhaps if it had been The Magic Flute, with Papageno the bird-catcher to jolly you through the pompous, serious bits? But Der Rosenkavalier, a story about a rich, middle-aged woman who falls for a younger man who offers her a rose?  Perhaps you’d have felt uncomfortable.

       There are three of us hanging around the side entrance hoping to sell tickets.  We shuffle, wiggle our toes inside our shoes because it’s so cold.  We all know the protocol.  I was there first, so I get the first buyer. I’m in luck. A man appears round the corner, his collar up against the cold.

       Where’s the seat?

       Circle, at the front.

       How much do you want for it?

       Well, it cost me £30.  He can sense that I’m not very good at this.

       So how much do you want for it?

       Twenty?

       I’ll give you five.

       Mean bastard, I’m thinking, but it’s only ten minutes to curtain up, and a bird in the hand...?

       Ten?

       Five.

       Ugly bastard.  I can tell he’s been here before, knows that if I don’t agree, the next person in the queue will.  He knows the ticket’s his, on the cheap, all the loss mine.

       I inwardly blame you for my humiliation.  It is your fault that you do not like grand opera, that you particularly dislike the stuffiness of the Opera House, that you would rather watch re-runs of Man U  v. Milan on Sky.  It is your fault that the man who buys my ticket is as mean as hell and balding and fat.  It is your fault that I shall have to sit next to him.  I ponder my revenge - best taken cold, as they say in Milan  (in Manchester, they say life’s too short).

       Excuse me.  Sorry.  Thank you.  Sorry.   I make my way, solo, to my seat.  Shortly after, and to the irritation of our neighbours, who have to stand-up-sit-down all over again, Mr Mean arrives, settles himself into the seat next to mine.  His cheapness will take the edge off the beauty of the music.  His breathing intrudes too much on my consciousness.  Now he is incurring my wrath, because I only ask one, impossible, thing of him - that he be you.  The money has ceased to matter.  I want to share this performance with you, not him.  The Opera House feels suddenly empty of all but its upholstery - plush seats, bloated wallets, plum splendour.  The question is not ‘why aren’t you here?’ but ‘why am I?’.

       The house lights dim. The curtain is raised. Coins are quietly dropped last minute into opera-glass slots.  Mint creams waft from somewhere close by.  As the orchestra starts up, everything is driven from my mind except the flirtations of violin with voice, woman with man, age with youth.

       At the interval, I make my way out to the bar. People are discussing the performance. They are agreed on its excellence, allowing for the odd top note that the Princess occasionally misses. Some middle-aged women remark that the Knight of the Rose is certainly very handsome.  We wouldn’t say no ourselves.  They laugh.

       My head rings with song. You are the loser, not I. Around me, the dinner jackets and clutch-bags, the diamonds and velvet, mill and swirl.  Everyone looks pink-cheeked, tipsy with the excitement of the occasion.  It is our last bubble of magic before January gets its claws into our flesh, deepens its grip, ready to floor us all;  another year gone.

       When I return to my seat, he is still sitting there. He has not left it.  He looks less repulsive now. I notice that his clothes are quite worn, not very well cut.  He’s down-trodden, drab, probably at that age when he’s wondering what happened to his dreams. Like me. Indeed, I’m starting to think that if he had only explained his situation and asked me nicely, I’d have given him the wretched ticket for nothing.

       It’s the last scene. The Princess realises that her young knight is in love with someone else - the young and beautiful Sophie.  She steels herself to let him go and to bless the marriage of youth to youth. She confronts the truth.  She has had her day.  It would be wrong to - and anyway she cannot - bind the young knight to her, against his will.  Age admits defeat.  The rose of youth is protected, given its hour of grace, its poignant bloom.

       The audience is absolutely silent.  The young are entranced by the beauty.  The rest of us know that one day the young knight and his beautiful Sophie will wake up to find youth gone, and snow soft as cats’ paws falling on their shoulders, their hair.

       I am crying in the darkness.  The man beside me is sobbing.

       When the house lights go up, we rise, lose each other quickly in the milling.  We will never see each other again.  But we were both there, just before the bubble popped for ever.