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

An hour before New Year and Call-Me-Bill’s leaning on the wall-
                                                                              units telling tales.

Now it’s using a car’s tow-rope to lower a coffin. A sip of tonic
                                                                            and he’s off again

as he fingers his pager and we watch the vol-au-vent peel away
                                                                                     from his tie.

I left him between EEC rules on coffin padding and new sensors
                                                                    in crematoria chimneys,

to sidle across to Hi-I’m-Linda. She’s been talking football -
                                                                           well, Sunderland -

and have ye seen The Stadium Of Light? Then she leans over to
                                                                    pour more Lambrusco,

her cleavage deepening over the chicken, her watch-strap
                                                               moistened in the pilau rice,

an ye should see the way he polishes his shoes at night, presses
                                                                  his trousers each week,

before she shows her teeth as she bites into a sausage, his first real
                                                                            job in five years,

a new lease of life, while she reveals a smooth armpit as she
                                                                       pushes back her hair,

so, we’re off to Torremolinos this June, after his course on
                                                                    embalming. And you?