Poetry GCSE

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The Manhunt

By Simon Armitage

After the first phase,

after passionate nights and intimate days,

only then would he let me trace

the frozen river which ran through his face,

only then would he let me explore

the blown hinge of his lower jaw,

and handle and hold

the damaged, porcelain

collar-bone,

and mind and attend the fractured rudder of shoulder-blade,

and finger and thumb the parachute silk of his punctured lung.

Only then could I bind the struts

and climb the rungs of his broken ribs,

and feel the hurt

of his grazed heart.

Skirting along,

only then could I picture the scan,

the foetus of metal beneath his chest

where the bullet had finally come to rest.

Then I widened the search,

traced the scarring back to its source

to a sweating, unexploded mine

buried deep in his mind,

around which every nerve in his body had tightened and closed.

Then, and only then, did I come close.

Hour

By Carol Ann Duffy

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