This Week's Poem of the Day
This Week's Poem of the Day is taken from Simon Armitage's forthcoming Smith/Doorstop pamphlet, The Motorway Service Station as a Destination in its Own Right. (This collection will be launched at an event at Bank Street Arts on March 8th — find out more here.)
THE ENGLISH ASTRONAUT
He splashed down in rough seas off Spurn Point.
I watched through a coin-op telescope jammed
with a lollipop stick as a trawler fished him out
of the waves and ferried him back to Mission
Control on a trading estate near the Humber
Bridge. He spoke with a mild voice: yes, it was
good to be home; he’d missed his wife, the kids,
couldn’t wait for a shave and a hot bath. ‘Are
there any more questions?’ No, there were not.
I followed him in his Honda Accord to a Little
Chef on the A1, took the table opposite, watched
him order the all-day breakfast and a pot of tea.
‘You need to go outside to do that,’ said the
waitress when he lit a cigarette. He read the
paper, started the crossword, poked at the black
pudding with his fork. Then he stared through
the window for long unbroken minutes at a time,
but only at the busy road, never the sky. And his
face was not the moon. And his hands were not
the hands of a man who had held between finger
and thumb the blue planet, and lifted it up to his
watchmaker’s eye.
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
