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

Distance gathers round;
becks ribbon the fells,
bed down into rivers.

He sets off,
edging and toeing
tweed limestone pavements;
grikes and clints jig-
saw together.

The sky is empty, steady,
that bird-egg blue
above hedgerows...
their Cortina bounced along,
mum serenading Nat King Cole,
everyone straining
for the first
wash of sea.

      ****

The sign to Beckermonds
points to where she draped
herself across the bonnet
of their Fiesta, pouting.

They stole into the firs
layered with green cloud,
she in that baggy,
cheesecloth smock thing;
laying back on moss,
sun exploding needles.

Giggling into a pub,
their public selves
felt clothe-strange;
his jumper
a snare of twigs
on the back.

      ****

Clouds curdle.
Outside a coffee shop,
he picks out hikers
on the watershed
of sinking light.

He refloats
on this vastness,
feels contours.
Skylarks amaze
their voices flying.

      ****

For months: work,
faces, paperclips;
paperclips mazed together,
circuits of nothingness,
silver fish under files.

Home is the twins,
the roughty-toughty twins,
the cricket-crazy twins;
singing their songs
that loop his mind.
Home is sponging carpets,
emptying the rubbish.
Everything close up.

The girl he married
no longer hikes,
swims in plunge pools
dark as whiskey,
tickles him. He doesn’t
read to her,
brush her hair.
They don’t wrestle
naked. Laugh.

He stands in the lounge
staring into the road;
or waits for quietness
to detonate, cries
to yank at parents,
his belly slack,
her breasts flopping,
pale as moonlight.

      ****

A chill shudders the air.
He’s jumped in the car.
‘Pistols’ blaring,
he straightens the road,
crosses becks: ribbons
of tattered speed.

The distance settles
on his house as calm.
He hopes his boys
are still awake.