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

Come on now, Mary.
Just pop this in your mouth -
There’s a good girl.

No response.

No hurt.
Just a little sweetie.
You want to get better, don’t you?

That was a joke.
One shrouded night
When the mingling of steady breathing
Had rolled like the ocean,
When the clicks of heels
Had snapped like gulls’ screams
On the cold tiles,
I had caught a fingertip of conversation,
As they reached over me,
Tucking in the woollen blanket
That had strayed from the fold
And lay draped on the floor.

Know about her, don’t you?
A nod at the next bed,
A raised eyebrow, expectant.
Who? Mary? no. What?
Got pregnant at thirteen.
First love and all that.
Scandalous in those days.
All hushed up, of course.
Abortion. Boy sent away to boarding school.
She labelled mentally ill.
Bundled off to an institution.
Been pass-the-parcel ever since.
Couldn’t live on her own now.

You want to get better don’t you?
Mary was as well as she was ever going to get.

The spoon reached her lips
And penetrated their dryness.
Her straw neck swallowed
And I tried not to stare

From my oasis in the next bed.

She sat upright as a piano,
Rarely speaking, rarely alive.
The visitors who showered me
With chocolates, books, the inevitable grapes,
Never gave her a second glance.
More from embarrassment
Than concern for her privacy.

Her stare screamed more of regret
Than distant shores
And aromatic market stalls.
Her unchanging expression
Didn’t hear the conversations
The kisses, the laughter.
Dead bark.
The living eyes cocooned in decayed sockets.

When the perfume and cigar breath
Had given up the fight to disinfectant,
Armed with crutches I lollopped,
A pantomime horse in pyjamas,
To the chair next to the silent bed.
Saying her name, too quietly,
I placed the grapes on the unruffled sheets.
Brushing her hand, I shivered at its coldness.

Mary,
I whispered
(For I had heard the nurses
Saccharin coaxing on many an occasion)
Are you hungry?
With an effort
Her eyes focused
Before the neck had fully turned.

I thought you might like these.
You don’t seem to have many ....
I’ve got plenty you see.
Don’t really like grapes, anyway.
Skin gets stuck on my teeth.

Well.

I’ll leave them there, shall I?

I’ll pop over again if you like.

Bye then Mary.

As I struggled to master my extra legs
I heard a sound behind me.
The noise rose, rasping
From somewhere other than her throat.
And I paused,
With pregnant expectancy.

My name,
She said
Is Ellen.