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

It started when the waiter saw me look down as though a meteor
             lay burning through the table cloth.
                          His eyebrows ran together
                                       in a line and, as if playing a game,
             his fingers rippled through the air above the salt.


Another appeared on my left side, introduced himself as
             ‘Franco’, rolled his name like a conjuror, pulled out
                          a napkin, did it so fast I thought he must have
                                       injured himself,
                          thought the red linen would splash me,
                                                                 mark me
                                                    in a way I did not want to be
                                       marked.
                                                    Not then.
In three oval bowls of warm water,
             slices of unpeeled lemon cling to the surface.

I do not understand anything in the menu,
                                  must have read it three or four times.
                       This is where we go for tapas and I know now
                                                  this means ‘lid’.
On this night, words are thin shapes
                                                            black, hanging and ridiculous.
             French beans. Catalan ham, Dinner. Lunch. Private Functions.
                          The wine list, wrapped in padded, buttoned red leather.
The gilt chair. A darkness of velvet. Was it curtains or cushions?

I try to keep
                             from running
             back there,
                                       to the room with hissing door hinges,
                                                                 clear tubes,
             the sound of breathing that is not the breath of life to me
                          any more than it would be to him.

That noise has become our song,
             the reason we know where we are. That’s why people have songs,
                                                                 isn’t it,
                          to take them to the same place, at the same time?

Would it seem, somehow awkward
             or out of place to slide
                                                    across the floor,
                                       over the veined cream tiles,
             avoid the three legged barstools,
to push the impossible glass door,
                          pause at the astonished face
                                                    of the girl who took our coats,
                                                                 to explain,
             ‘Tonight, I cannot eat calamari,
                          tonight I cannot eat chorizo?
                                       I don’t care that tonight’s
                                                    tortilla is fresh,
                                             layered with onion and almost absurdly yellow.
             I know the aubergines were
                                       smoked this evening and the flat-bread,
             spread with concass of green tomatoes and toasted halloumi,
                                was once
                                              a Moorish delicacy.

Put my coat away,
                                       or put it on,
throw it into the street.
                          I don’t care.
                                       My father never liked it.
                   He is dying, he is dying, dying tonight. He may even be
                                       doing it
                                                    now’.