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

Sipping wine, she knows she's been carrying this something
          like laughter inside her for years,
felt it when she'd found their rabbit unusually flat and her
          brother grinned, said, an air gun,

and in the warmth of the greenhouse when Uncle Stephen
          made her get hold of his thing,
said kiss it, then arched, his weight on his toes and fingers,
          and she thought he needed a bath,

then she felt it again when the Sister told her Mam and her
          they'd arrived just too late
and it was peaceful, which she knew wasn't true by the way
          his fists were still clenched,

and it had almost broke free, watching Sky at the the Hotel,
          just married, her husband too drunk,
then when he'd broken her teeth, and the police said Domestic,
          then the day when he'd cried,

then she'd felt it kick somewhere above her period pains
          when he'd met her outside Safeway,
tried to force her to come back, and in Casualty, after
          the x-rays, when they said cracked ribs,

and now, as her legs ache and the sausage rolls dry, and
          as she's poured yet more Spanish red
which overflows her glass, stains the doilies, reaches the table's
          edge, as her hand is wiped

she's told, I'll leave her, and the kids, tomorrow we'll get a flat,
          I'll get a transfer to Leeds,
and she knows if she doesn't walk away quickly it will come
          out, unrestrained, unbelievably loud.