I wish I loved lawnmowers
By Mark Waldron
I really do wish I did. Because if I loved
lawnmowers I could go
to the lawnmower museum I just heard
about on the radio in a piece
about small museums.
It’s in Southport apparently —
a seaside town “fringed to the north by
the Ribble Estuary,” according to Wikipedia.
It would be quite a trip to go up there,
and I’d almost certainly
have to stay the night. I think I might stay
in the Prince of Wales Hotel, which looks
conveniently situated for the station
and the museum too. I can hardly bear
to think how much I’d be looking forward
to making that trip if I loved lawnmowers.
On the radio they said they have all sorts
of models from Victorian ones all the way
through to a state-of-the-art robot one
that’s powered by solar energy.
If I was planning the visit I’d probably
have a bit of a virtual walk-round
on Street View, and in fact I’ve just done
exactly that in an effort to capture
the feeling I’d have if I was actually
anticipating a trip to the lawnmower museum.
Exploring the area I discovered
that Southport looks very much like
Weston-super-Mare, where, as it happens,
I stayed in a halfway house many
years ago after doing a stint in rehab.
Now crack cocaine — that I loved.
Notes:
This poem originally appeared in The Poetry Review. You can read the other poems in this exchange in the May 2017 issue.
Source: Poetry (May 2017)