Southport*

 

On Wednesday afternoon we meet in Southport

Wander through the bookshops

Gaze at the stock and rummage through boxes

Till afternoon tea brings coffee clouds

And tea drenched biscuits

 

Later as Southport wanders down toward the sea

We follow it, along the boardwalk bridge

Through no-ball-game gardens

That explode with colour and nameless flowers

Past children playing, shouting wordlessly.

Ice cream in hand we stand and watch the fair

Listen to the shrieks and screams

And the mechanical clatter of artificial fun

 

Later still in Mellor's over tea cakes we talk about the future

Open some of Howell's treasures

Brown paper wrapped, string tied with Victorian gentility,

Plan, look at the books and each other.

And I wonder if your eyes which hold my picture now

Will ever open to the morning and find me there.

 

(Jim Bennett - 29th May 1998)

*A coastal town in Lancashire, England.

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