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

The polaroid photo in an envelope
only one. (What happened to your camera?)
You said on the phone the hotel wasn’t far
from the place where we’d stayed - the year
of that first holiday. Is that the cathedral
in the background? Where the old woman sang
and you gave her a rose? And is that the bridge
where we stood, and the man with the white dog -
but its bite didn’t pierce the skin. No doubt
the rules are stricter now. You must have been
on your balcony, sleepless as usual. The tree
and the mist from the river would have made
a good shot. Blurred. But the dawn at the top...

Why ever don’t you take the digital,
she always says. Fuzz. She isn’t a fuzzy
woman. She likes family snapshots. Mountains
she can put the names beneath. Abbeys
that she knows are abbeys, short histories
tucked in her brain. Others think her fussy.
She isn’t. Her sense of order is what I love.
She keeps a diary, has a feel for words.
When I bring back picture postcards, she laughs,
knows I’m teasing. The conference was dull
(designs for ceral packets). We finished late,
too late for trees. This morning as the mist
clears a little, I might catch that twisted...

Tree caught his fall. A funny case, I said
to my wife. Heart attack? Suicide? Who
would want to murder him? But can’t rule it out.
And that interpreter. Slick rather than
accurate, I’d guess. Mud on the balcony rail.
Colleagues didn’t say much. Shredded wheat, cardboard.
Quiet. Thought he was keen on photography.
That was a laugh. In his suitcase all these
grey wishy-washy A4 sheets. Code
we wondered at first. Or something dodgy
off the net. But our man soon put us right.
Poor camera. Couldn’t focus. Parkinson’s
perhaps? Management agreed. Time to fell...

Trees. I’m surprised she kept them. A long time.
And tomorrow the man from Tate Modern
will make his speech, and they’ll drink wine, walk round,
make their intelligent observations,
go home. I expect she’ll be pleased. Sort of.
They’ll escort her carefully, speak of talent.
She’ll smile. They’ve done a good job. Lighting
sensitive, and the ordering on the whole...
I would perhaps have... that young sycamore...
that elm... poor elms. But you... they’ve done you proud,
haven’t they? Your spring, always late. Summer
I couldn’t find you, was glad when autumn came.
But winter, o winter and you in all your
gnarled glory...