"About His Person" by Simon Armitage

About His Person



Five pounds fifty in change, exactly,
library card on its date of expiry.

A postcard, stamped,
unwritten, but franked,

a pocket-size diary slashed with a pencil
from March twenty-fourth to the first of April.

A brace of keys for a mortise lock,
an analogue watch, self-winding, stopped.

A final demand
in his own hand,

a rolled-up note of explanation
planted there like a spray carnation

but beheaded, in his fist.
A shopping list.

A giveaway photograph stashed in his wallet,
a keepsake banked in the heart of a locket.

No gold or silver,
but crowning one finger

a ring of white unweathered skin.
That was everything.


Source of the text – Simon Armitage, Kid. London: Faber and Faber, 1992, p.85.

TJB: Detective-lyric. The consonant-heavy rhythm & West Yorkshire slang charge this character-sketch-accomplished-by-observing-objects with life.