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

forward fast past the shite and you come to the time she was sat in a cafe with a friend who disappeared for a while to get the food, leaving her, long straight hair and tired-looking face looking out at the traffic rather sad somehow like nothing in the world would make her smile or talk, like everything’s gone bad both inside and out - me, behind her, having thoughts like wouldn’t it be nice to pop over, sit down, say “hi, you alright? what’s your name?” as if I might possibly get away with such a thing. And then her friend comes back and they chat in voices too quiet to overhear and she does now and then force a smile.

put your thumb on speed up and whisk past those lonely coffee lunchtimes sat with a Daily Whatever, a book on taming pot bellied pigs, and then again some weeks later, forty five minutes into my lunch hour, the same strange face with its staring and stillness, watching cars sloshing through rainy roads, bodies trotting for shelter, dreary everyday goings on as seen through her glass eyes through a glass screen and excuse me? I’m thinking, “hi, do you mind if I sit down? you alright? what you thinking about?” and this time she isn’t with her friend and I start playing with the corner of my book and take a quick look around and there aren’t many people, you know, like maybe I could risk it - and then the rest of her tea’s down her throat and the cup’s back on the table and she’s unhooking her bag from the chair - and in one split moment of her getting up and turning around her eyes, always happy to let things happen, browse this knackered man in a baggy shirt - never quite sure who he is or what the hell’s going on

hit stop and take the tape out, don’t bother rewinding, might as well be a blank, and anyway there’s another one here, one of me at work - sauntering up and down in a white shirt carrying caps and piles of paper, passing glass walls hand-some heads and pulling wires underneath the desks of women in sexy tights, say-ing, “that’s it, fixed, you’re alright now” (thanks Tommy love, you’re a star) and con-stantly checking the clock for my regular dinnertime walk, always under pressure to join the rest of the gang at the Fleece for some chips and a pint (come on Tom lad, what’s up with you?) and thinking about going down one day just to see what it’s like but always, for some reason, favouring the paving flags and maybe if you wind it on far enough past all the adverts and the endless bor-ing bits you’ll find the time, sat sipping in the same old place, she said “hi” and I spilt my drink and shoved my book under the table and she sat down staring past me at some distant thing I don’t think I’ve ever seen, “do you mind if I sit here?” and me saying “no, no, please, feel free.” “You’re the guy who looks at me aren’t you?” Me clutching my book with my mouth wide open and her gazing at side of my head like there’s someone behind. “It’s alright like, I’m not bothered...” Across the table her hands have a shake - and I know now that this isn’t what I want and although I have nothing to say I say “thanks, thanks for coming over” and push back and stumble up into a stand and she shouts, “well what did you expect?” as I leave.

Have the tape play itself to death and the end come up too quick and the last weak piece break off in the player and the screen go white and have long black strings go wriggling across it and see me with my own car my own house my own wife who doesn’t stare, check out my fridge my TV my PC with its 32 megabyte card, see me trotting for shelter in trousers adjusting my tie, never see me look-ing at the cracks, see me bang open the door of the Fleece the Rat the Bull the Shovel, start drowning the pint and PAUSE.

and let go, and see the women in the cafe sat staring out the window, and zoom in closer to her eyes, zoom right in to her eyes - have her eyes take it all, the whole screen.