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

It was a nice snowy winter. Every afternoon all the kids were out in Clifton Park with their sleds, long after the early sunset.

                         Neighborhood park
                         insignificant in summer 
                         immense under snow.

For the first time I went sledding without my father. After a few trips downhill flat on my stomach, I got bored. Envious of the skiers I had seen in a movie, I stood up on my sled, held the steering ropes like reins, and down I went. A vast snow-covered landscape opened before me. I was flying. At the bottom of the hill I jumped off the sled and ran beside it, expertly guiding it to a stop. From a passing sled: “Only a girl would do that.” It was Jimmy Fletcher, the second smartest kid in my class. I was the smartest. We did not particularly like each other, but we were not bitter rivals either. Perhaps we were both too intelligent for that. I was surprised to hear him say anything so snide, so petty. Or so contemptuous of girls. So what, I didn’t think much of boys.

                         School valentines
                         I send one unsigned
                         to the best looking boy.

I continued my daredevil course without incident. Then I found out the hard way that Jimmy had a point. Spring was coming on. There was no more snow on the Big Hill, worn down to mud and a few shreds of grass. But shallower slopes at the sides still held a little snow. I launched myself down one of them. Almost at once I hit a bare patch and flew over the front of the sled, landing full length in the mud.

I walked into the kitchen, knowing how hard Mama would have to work to clean the mud off my coat and leggings. She looked at me in dismay, and asked what happened.  

                “Well, I was going downhill on my sled standing up...”

This was the first my mother knew of my latest innovation. But by now she didn’t shock so easily. Nor care so much, I think. She had my younger sisters to bring up.

                         Ailanthus in bloom
                         the tadpoles in the lake
                         have all turned to frogs.