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

1/
He was twenty seven. She told him she worked in a boutique but that actually she was a writer. She said it was her way of making memories. There was the possibility that she would stop one day. She told him about the place she grew up. Its vast sky. The boats on the river.

He lived in a council house with his mother and father. She stayed when they were on holiday. In his room, a three quarter bed, a wardrobe with a mirror and a poster of Bob Marley jamming for all time. They danced to ‘No Woman No Cry’. He used to grind his teeth at night. She thought he was eating sweets.

2/
The next summer they went to Greece. She bought a backpack like his, but smaller. They took the ferry from Piraeus as far as Santorini. Mules clattered up the steps and on the cobblestones. He bought her earrings with black centres like fish eyes, glassy and turquoise as the cubicle they showered in. Cold water searing their backs.

Small bells tinkled. The future opened like a clam.

3/
They sold everything for a flat in the city, six floors up and no lift. The birds flew in and out the open window. Mould bloomed on the bathroom wall. She painted the 2-barred fire blue, to match the gate-legged table and the curtain pole. He warmed the icy sheets with his body before she slipped inside them.

4/
She walked to college in the snow wearing the boots he bought her. He stayed up all night to help her tackle King Lear. She soaked his white jacket in the bath but the metal buttons rusted and turned it orange. He said it’s old, anyway.

He liked to watch her write. He watched her hook her hair behind her ear with her pen. My little canary he said. Don’t fly away. That can never happen, she said, and laughed like someone who knew about these things.

5/
The frozen trees looked like diagrams of lungs. Chilblains burned her feet. She washed their clothes by hand to save trips to the launderette, her fingers stubby and pink among the suds. Water streaking her arms.

He broke her first sugar bowl.

6/
He found a new job travelling up and down motorways. He brought her back Brazil nuts and chocolate peppermint creams. Her essay grades got better but she didn’t want to teach.

7/
They bought a house, sowed grass and laid a patio. The paving stones sank with the first rains. They had a baby coming but no stair carpet. Tin tacks in the wood. First a daughter then a son.

He brought back French bread fresh from the shop. Made coffee. Rinsed bottles. She bought white socks and bonnets. She didn’t want to fuck.

8/
He jumped at the chance of a job abroad. He thought it was the only way he would see the Far East. She thought it would be like going home. The vast sky. Boats on the river. He travelled most weeks and called to tell her what the weather was like in Taipei, Beijing or Bangkok.

She fretted about the whores in Pat Pong. Their bony pelvises tilted forwards. Their long, slow smiles.

9/
She sat under a striped umbrella by the pool and thought about how it could be. A swim each morning. Writing until noon. The peace of a solitary life. She saw the children splash towards him. Drops of water spangling his hair. She saw him taking measured steps backwards, laughing. The too familiar twist of his mouth.

10/
They came back to grey clouds and rain. She watched her mother fading with the year. He said she had to cope. She asked him why. She planted daffodils bulbs in the front garden and looked for signs of them well past Spring.

She threw a bottle of red nail varnish at him. It broke against the wall and stained the back of the sofa. Don’t do this, he said. She climbed on his lap and sobbed into his neck.

11/
He kept his grey hair close cut. He woke at six thirty and went to the gym. He stopped eating bacon or cheese. His cholesterol count was high. He planned to pay off bills, retire early, buy a house in France. She wanted to ride a motorbike, have her own career, learn to plant a tree. She wanted to do it alone.

He tried to show her how far they had come. She wanted to see how far she could go.

12/
She told him about the affair sitting in the car, talking to the garden shed. It just crept up she said and that’s the truth. She told him she was going to leave. She would have her own life, her own space. There was no more to be said.

That night he gazed at her long back while she undressed. He knew he wouldn’t touch it again.

13/
They made a polite list. She would take the rugs. He would keep some of the paintings. She wanted him to have the Chinnery they bought in Singapore. She could have the furniture. They would share the lamps.

Then he cooked a meal for her and put it down at her feet while she lay on the sofa. She left it there until the grease congealed and he took it away.

14/
He went to see his parents. He parked outside the house and sat for a while. He remembered going fishing with his father when he was a boy. Taking this very road. His ears cold in the morning air. The thrill of the rod between his hands. The small sounds of the river. When nettles were his only fear.

The tablecloth was one she’d sent his mother from abroad. He chewed while the embroidered blades of grass pierced the air around his plate.

15/
He wanted her. Her absence itched like a sawn-off limb. He wanted to tell her it was all here. Some days he couldn’t see a single mistake. Some days he saw them all. He had a plan. Don’t look too far ahead.

If it doesn’t work out, he said, maybe we could try again.

16/
He emptied the house of her and took no photographs. She packed everything into one van and drove north. She kept all his letters and cards, the wedding album and the photo of him sitting at a table in Greece, smoking a cigarette.

His young face looked back at her, his eyes narrowed and his chin lifted, as if he was sizing her up. As if he didn’t believe she could be trusted.

17/
He is haunted by the stamp of her on everything he has. As he bends to put wood on the fire. Flashes of her dark eyes, the tiny whorls of her ears and the mouse softness of her feet. But he is practised. His face gives nothing away.

She stands holding the cardboard box of Chinese porcelain bowls she forgot he had. Her nails are long and varnished pearl white. No cracks in their perfection. She doesn’t wear a ring.

18/
In spite of her lover’s presence in the flat, he bought her a toaster, kettle, pans. Paid bills. She believed it was out of kindness. Duty, maybe. Then he found a lover too. An old friend who lent him books to improve his mind. There was a ring of pale stones on the card she sent him.

The dark mornings grew lighter, cast a blue haze. The air smelt of Spring.

19/
She had a new career. He had a new start. He told people leaving was the best thing she did. He didn’t give it any more thought. She thought she might stop writing. There was so much she didn’t want to say. She was woken by dreams of squeezing herself into small spaces. He was woken by his own snores.

She thought she looked good for her age but she knew her hands gave her away.

20/
Five years on and she has exchanged her motorbike for a car and teaches other people to plant trees. She has bought her own home, made her own decision to paint the hall green and paid her own bills.

Her future is wide open.

21/
He wears a wedding ring. Children’s feet clatter across his wooden floors. Her house is tidy, quiet and clean. She wants to tell him she is growing her hair again. That she is buying music he used to like. Van Morrison and Joe Jackson.

Their daughter says he is looking old.

22/
She sees their old house in a dream. Its pink walls. The garden she said was bigger than a football pitch. She is sitting in the kitchen watching the tractors in the fields again. She wakes and feels she could wander up the drive. Find things unchanged. Smell the winter jasmine she planted near the back door. Find the porch light on.

His boots by the hallstand.

23/
He is fifty seven. He listens to country now and a lot of jazz. He likes to cook French and Italian. He has a set of Sabatier knives just for the purpose. Her children visit several times a year. She used to send him e-mails when she worried about them. Always an essay, he said. Now she can’t think what to say.

She wonders if he might like one of the rugs. It doesn’t fit in her hall.

24/
She listens to the radio. They are playing ‘Out of kindness, I suppose’, while she washes her clothes by hand. Her fingers pink and stubby among the suds. Water streaks on her arms. She looks out of the window and sees signs of a hard winter. Leaves falling late. Heavy berries on the hawthorn. The garden quivers as something rises inside her, hollow as fear.