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

It was all done through Rotary and we were able
to swap with a family in Boston.  I cut the grass
and Jane bought new cutlery and a microwave.
She wanted to give the whole house a face-lift
but I told her it’d cost more than the holiday.
I couldn’t get her to relax.  We slept the last night

in the spare room but she had another night-
-mare so we were up early and able
to make the airport well before midday.
I was terrified that Jane would start to regress
in some way, and she could tell.  ‘The break’ll lift
my spirits - don’t worry’, she said - but a wave

of panic rolled through me when she waved
to two boys in the concourse and called, ‘Good night!’
when the parents ushered them into a lift,
the father glaring at us.  We found a table
by a huge window and stared at the strips of grass
between the runways shimmering in the heat of the day.

We landed at the same time on the same day
that we’d left and I felt as if our own heatwave
had travelled with us when I saw the same burnt grass
and floating tarmac.  Jane slept that night
but I couldn’t.  The heat and the worry were unbearable
so I decided to explore the house, having left

a note on the pillow.  Quietly I started to lift
the covers they’d draped, as if for some birthday
surprise, in the spare rooms they weren’t able
to lock - but in the children’s room a wave
of nausea and guilt stopped me and I sat all night
among the white shrouded shapes like gross

snowmen, melting.  At daybreak I looked at the grass
and the long shadows and thought of the twins in the chair-lift
on our last holiday, the photo of us all the night
they buried me in snow, and then the day
of the accident. I wept and a cover shook in a wave
as I gripped it, but the tears were for Jane and for me.  I was able

to see we’d both regressed until we were left
wavering siblings to each other like night
and day, without a home and inconsolable.