I Knew Bobby

I spoke to your widow on her mobile

the other day in Homosassa. We’d never met,

but your friend Sonny gave me her number.

She told me you’d been dead for 11 years

and she still thought about you some days.

You come back to me in an old

black and white photo, your profile sipping

tequila, glass in the hand disfigured by a Chinese

bayonet that exited at the elbow before

the rifle discharged and made a mess.

You woke up on a hospital ship and spent

the next few years chasing wetbacks across

the Mexican border until you got bored

and went in search of the same thing

that we all did. I see you breaking the edge

of a jungle clearing, reciting the rules of cricket

in your southern drawl, and despite the brash exterior

and your admiration of my English reserve,

you taught me quiet survival during the long

dark hours of prison nights.

That was what killed you, Linda said,

you took the next 13 years to die. She said

you’d been childhood sweethearts and finally

married her before taking off again. ‘You know Bobby’

she said, and there was a pause at the other end of the line.

John H Davies

30th March 2011