Burried deep within

Literally, an eleventh-hour Blip.

I took the image some time earlier, as we were finishing dinner. I was at Geoffrey's house, with some of the student group that gather at his from time to time. Seeing as Burns' night is coming up, we all came prepared to share a poem. I think that Geoffrey is listening to one, as I point the camera his way. I'd already delivered mine- practiced for the last ten years. I've nevner forgotten one of the poems that I learned as a school-kid. Somehow, ten years on, it make the English lessons seem more worthwhile. There was something there that has stuck, and become part of me. Even when I've not needed it, it has been there. And today it came out again....

I am very bothered when I think
of all the bad things I have done in my life.

Not least that time in the Chemistry lab
when I held a pair of scissor by the blade
and played the handles
in the naked lilac flame
of the bunsen burner,
then called your name
and handed them over.

O the unrivalled stench of branded skin
as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in
marked- the doctor said- for eternity.

So don't believe me please,
if I say
that it was just my butterfingered way
of asking you if you would marry me.

Simon Armitage