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

     The table was wobbly, and the chairs were a bit wobbly too, but it didn’t matter, they’d hold their cappuccinos so they wouldn’t spill. Better to be out under the awning on the pavement than holed up indoors - it’d be wasting the weather.

     Avril dunked her croissant as May sampled her lemon trickle cake.

     ‘They only call it that so’s you won’t mind that there isn’t much lemon.’

     ‘It works, though.’

     ‘Oh yes, words work. They’re meant to.’

     ‘Delicious to think you’re eating a trickle. Yummy!’

     ‘The sheep were dying in their scores.’

     ‘Whassat?’

     ‘Just came into my head from somewhere; or nowhere: “The sheep were dying in their scores...”’

     ‘That rings a bell. Something to do with Breughel, wasn’t it?’

     Two men with gleaming red faces jogged ponderously past, their T-shirts puddles to their backs. The young women exchanged conspiratorial chortles.

     ‘Nothing more stimulating to do, obviously.’

     ‘Hang on, I’ve got it:
           The sheep were dying in their scores
           When peasants trod the ice of old
           But Breughel didn’t feel the cold...’

     ‘Small comfort.’

     ‘That’s right - “Small comfort.” That’s what it was called, I think. But who - when - what - where?’

     ‘And above all, why?’

     Avril looked pensive. She was pensive. ‘So how about, “The lady of the silk explains...”’

     Swifts came shrieking through the gully of the street, swerving, looping the loop: rapid tableaux of the Battle of Britain.

     ‘A pity they don’t leave vapour trails...’

     ‘Should be technically feasible, I’d imagine: equip then with micro-size smoke generators...’

     ‘Yellow, magenta, cyan - all the colours you need to make all the colours.’

     May’s voice was abrasive. You could have sharpened a kitchen knife on her tongue. That was what Avril found most attractive about her.

     ‘What was that about the lady of the silk, then?’

     ‘I don’t know.’

     ‘Shall I tell you?’

     ‘Consider your bluff called.’

     ‘All right:
           The lady of the silk explains
           However different devils are
           The one you know is worst by far.
           Small comfort.’

     ‘Consider me impressed. Impressed, but not to be out-done:
           The policeman in the doctor’s coat
           Who knows the law and keeps the letter
           Isn’t there to make you better...

     ‘Now, all together...’

     ‘“Small comfort!”’

     Now they’ve finished their snacks and paid their bill.

     With a shudder of bronzed knees - startled horses - they thumb their canvas bags over their shoulders and make off, hungry for more.