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

Autumn stands on the corner of Queenswood Road. He is a negro this year, homosexual and proud.

For the time of year the days and nights are particularly cold. I think perhaps that he is waiting for a friend. He watches a turbulent relationship leaving No.40. They are going to the shops. They are too engrossed in one another’s problems to be aware of his eyes upon them. They need new batteries for their radio, it’s a priority, written at the top of a pocketed piece of paper:

3 U2 batteries
milk (2 pts.)
1 doz. eggs
cucumber
1 lb. mince

It’s a very long list. They’ll probably be out all afternoon. Perhaps she’ll make a ‘phone call to her mother. I am watching all this from the bedroom window. Then:

40 Embassy Regal
6 bread rolls
corn flakes

and they disappear round the corner. The neighbour’s cat sits on our wall. This has become a regular event. It’s a vantage point from which she makes calculations. I’m not sure of the exact nature of these. Apparently they involve food, comfort and the relationship between darkness and distances. Autumn chucks a leaf at her. It misses.

My present sexual neutrality comes through from the other room and joins me at the window. He is full of words.

“That film you wanted to see is on in a few minutes. Do you still want to go out for a drink this evening? I’m pretty bushed, could do with an early night. You’re quiet today. I see old Autumn’s out there again. Looks like he’s off up Anderton Park Road. Do you want another coffee?”

He leaves and I glance round the room. This morning’s wank is curled up and asleep in the unmade bed. Her fact-and-fantasy body seems incongruous, even slightly pathetic, when set against the proper world.

“It’s on the draining-board. I’ve not put any sugar in. The film’s starting. Are you coming through?”

What this place needs is a real woman’s touch. She’d see that the windows didn’t distract me so easily. She’d do something about the days and nights. She’d not make coffee that tasted of sweat. Sometimes when I lie in bed I hear her footsteps outside, It’s late and she’s hurrying past on her way home. Other nights she’s someone else and is too far away to be heard.

Perhaps I’ll ask her out for a meal. Perhaps we’ll be drunk at a party and I’ll fuck her as a formality before finding out that she’s a typist or a student or a trainee something. Perhaps she’ll suddenly say “Nick comma how are you question mark I didn’t know that you still lived round here et cetera” and we’ll both be pleased to see each other after so long and I never expected it would turn out to be her.

“Can we have 3 U2 batteries, please?” Simultaneously Autumn reaches the top of Anderton Park Road. I stir in one teaspoonful of sugar and go through to watch the film. She’s sitting on a bus somewhere, vaguely wondering what I’m going to look like and when. The cat is having problems with a particularly awkward calculation and decides to sleep on it. Mid-afternoon pulls up in his car and opens the door for Autumn to get in: “Where the hell have you been?”