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

We need to know about other people’s lives. It extends our focus. Take Allenby, from down the street. He was a nice man, always friendly, always willing to stop for a chat. They say he killed his wife with a few hammer blows to the head. There were bruises, however, all over parts of her body. There were things, vases, flowerpots and other things, broken, in pieces, all over the ground floor of the house. That "she obviously did not go willingly” was how the reporters put it.

Things were done so quietly the neighbours on either side heard nothing. There was nothing at all suspicious because the milk disappeared each morning. The Sunday papers disappeared too. But then, after three weeks of no sign of Allenby, and stray dogs scratching at the basement windows, the neighbours began to wonder. They knocked on the doors, front and back, but got no answer. They looked through the windows but could see nothing. The car was in the garage.

Finally, they telephoned the Police who came and broke down the front door. A horrible smell drew them towards the basement. Pieces of Mrs Allenby were everywhere. One of the younger police officers vomited. When they went upstairs again, they followed the trail of broken knick knacks. It led to the stairs and up to the second floor. They found Allenby in the bathtub with several veins opened. It was decided that he had died very slowly. The papers called that part of it a suicide, and never bothered to mention that he had his severed penis in his mouth. The young officer who had vomited earlier had to leave the room. In fact, he left the house.

I didn’t allow any photographs from the scene to be released to the press. All the gorier details were left out because the Allenbys were a nice couple, the couple next door. They were the too-bad-they-never-had-children couple. Everyone in the neighbourhood liked them. Me, I come from somewhere else, and I hated them. As I was saying, we need to know about other people’s lives. It extends our focus.