Simon Armitage

At Sea

It is not through weeping,but all evening the pale blue eyeon your most photogenic side has keptits own unfathomable tide. Like the boyat the dyke I have been there:held out a huge finger,lifted atoms of dust with the pointof a tissue and imagined slivers of hairin the oil on the cornea. We are bothin the…

Just how it came to rest where it rested,

was a fair question. Dropped by hurricaneor aeroplane perhaps for some reason,put down as a cairn or marker, then lost.Tractor-size, six or seven feet across,it was sloughed, unconscious, warm to the touch,its gashed, rhinoceros, sea-lion skinnursing a gallon of rain in its gut.Lashed to the planet with grasses and roots,it had to be cut. Stood…

Five pounds fifty in change, exactly,

A postcard stamped,unwritten, but franked,a pocket size diary slashed with a pencilfrom March twenty-fourth to the first of April.A brace of keys for a mortise lock,an analogue watch, self winding, stopped.A final demandin his own hand,a rolled up note of explanationplanted there like a spray carnationbut beheaded, in his fist.A shopping list.A givaway photgraph stashed…