Mother any distance Simon Armitage

Mother, any distance greater than a single span Perhaps metaphors for the features of life – relationships, career, opportunities etc. Direct address to his mother – he needs her ‘second pair of hands.’ Mother, any distance greater than a single span requires a second pair of hands. You came to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors, the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors. Acres and prairies suggest huge expanses of space – reflecting the enormous size of the task. metaphors

Mum there at the beginning, the starting point. He is leaving home, becoming more independent. You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving up the stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling years between us. Anchor. Kite. Allusion to an expedition with ‘base camp’ at the bottom always to return to. Mum is the steady one, won’t budge, a fixed point. He is the kite, blowing in the wind.

I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb Space – walking on air – on his own. Excited, not tied down, exploring new frontiers Enjambed line, but leaving ‘climb’ at the end of the line as a very active verb, helps with the sense of adventure I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something has to give; Tension between mother and child? The semi-colon marks the pause, balanced at the breaking point where the cord/connection between them may snap

two floors below your fingertips still pinch Both inches and centimetres used in the poem – older generation’s terminology and the new. He is desperate for independence; ‘pinch’ shows mum is desperate to hold on. two floors below your fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of an inch . . . I reach towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky to fall or fly. Sense of infinity, the future stretching out before him He is free to make his own mistakes, the possibility of success or failure.