Boys

(i)
We were a well-armed gang.
Average age: ten.
We traipsed over fields
and through woods
and by rivers
looking for creatures to kill.
We’d have our weapons with us
- catapults, air rifles -
and slaughter water rats, moorhens,
sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, wrens…
anything that flew, scuttled, swam.

Boys will be boys, regrettably.
I’d rewrite that phase of childhood
if I could.

(ii)
I nearly had a friend’s eye out
once. He was crouched down
by the water’s edge
looking for fish.
I aimed to give him a surprise
and catapulted a pebble at the water
but missed the slow
shallow
river
completely
and struck him on the cheek
just below
the left eye. Shit!
That was scary.

(iii)
I’m laughing now. Remembering
Anthony Rollett
who wanted to find out
just how powerful his new .22
air rifle really was.
He shot himself
in the foot
- his welly!
The pellet didn’t penetrate
the boot
but boy did he jump
and yelp
then limp all the way home
feeling stupid.

Goodness knows
what his mother had to say.
She was a woman
with a temper.
But that’s another story.