monkey business

I hope you will enjoy this lighthearted poem from one of the Bradford household's favourite contemporary British poets, Simon Armitage.

☼☼☼☼

The sun comes like a head

through last night's turtleneck.

☼

A pigeon in the yard turns tail

and offers me a card. Any card.

☼

From pillar to post, a pantomime

of damp, forgotten washing

on the washing line.

☼

So, in the breeze:

the olé of a crimson towel.

☼

the cancan of a ra ra skirt,

the monkey business of a shirt

pegged only by its sleeve, the cheerio

of a handkerchief.

☼

I drop the blind

but not before a company

of half a dozen hens

struts through the gate,

looks round the courtyard

for a contact lens.

☼☼☼

~Simon Armitage~