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

 




The road was excellent: all day the bus rushed down through the foothills. The heat might once have been intolerable. But I'd become accustomed over the months - also, it was exciting, 'tropical' again, after so long on the bare plateau.

       I smile at the girl beside me. 'Vallegrande', I say, pointing to the signpost - '53 kms. Road unsurfaced.'

       I don't know if I love her. I hold her hand but we sweat too much. I move, trying to be comfortable: my arse sticks to the seat. I smile at her. She smiles back and closes her eyelids.

       Look around and everyone's dozing - except me.

       The terrain is difficult. Full of gullies. Not good to travel through. They were travelling every day, with diarrhoea hunger asthma failure and the fear of death.

       "Yes, yes, the tactics were all wrong", the wild-eyed refined foreigner whispered through the bars, "but it was a question of strategy. This strategy had to be followed."

       Quiet, but the roar of the motor, hiss of the tyres: they are part of me, as I pass behind this great window through the wild lands. Quiet.

       I ask the priest if he's catching up with his work. "I am reading my prayers", he replies politely. In the villages little boys piddle on their feet and stare. Women in print dresses lie along the walls. "How peaceful and colorful the Indians are ..."

      We've done a lot together. Made love in 8 countries. Sometimes I think it's habit. Deep inside her, I say "I love you", or cry out sexual words.

       In the cool patio, at dusk, one arm brown from hanging out the window all day, my teeth dusty. I clean my teeth and cool my face. The water is tepid but cool enough to relax me, and make me realise how 'burning-tired' my body.

       We stood on the pavement in light rain. Girls in short skirts walked arm in arm. Santa Cruz.

       My hands waving, voice rises and falls. You stand hunched forwards, hands pressing down into pockets, level voice. We insult each other uselessly. We fall quiet, go for a coffee.

       "Viva Che", you say, with quiet irony, after a while.