Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Bobby Curtis was the one in Miss Bells class
with whom I painted that battleship which required
seven or eight pieces of thick paper taped together.
We kept painting and painting and the teachers
gathered round and kids
from other classes. It was well towards
six o’clock that day before we
finished.

He was a fair-haired boy, popular with the females.
We must have been seven or eight then.

A few years later I used to go round to
his house to watch Champion the Wonder Horse.
Bobby always was a daredevil but it wasn’t
with me but Ted Garwood that he fired lighted
matchsticks out of his toy cannon
and set the curtains alight.

I did see him climb the pole of the TV aerial
and he got right to the top and waved.
I’d gone home when he started to come
down, slipped and lost a ball to a monstrous
metal bolt.

He had an attractive older sister
and a few years later when Bobby
was going out nearly every night with Ted
and getting into fights which he always lost
I asked him to go in and ask Elaine
if she wanted to go out with me.
When I asked what she said he replied
that she’d just laughed.
I wasn’t quite bright enough then
to know if that meant yes or no.
When my sister and Glynis were
experimenting with their hair in the front room
they both turned and watched
when Bobby Curtis went by.
He wasn’t really vicious, just thoughtless
and you didn’t want to keep fighting him
because he couldn’t tell when enough
was enough
and anyway I never
particularly liked the bloke.