GOT a poem you would like to share with Army&You’s readers? Send it, preferably along with a photograph, to deped@aff.org.uk and we’ll feature it in Well-versed. Isabel Palmer describes her experiences as the mother of a young Rifleman deployed to Afghanistan, who was a Lead Scout and whose main role was to search for IEDs.
BFPO
You ask for fifty pounds
for boots: second-hand, worn in, broad
as camel feet, to roll away dust
like a third eyelid. I speak wishes,
drop silver into wells.
You long for body spray, manly vetivers,
heavy as church windows, of smoky leather
and cigars, stronger than your
greenhouse air when poppies lean
their heads against stained skies. I send
cool crystals to grow snowmen, mistletoe,
Christmas trees.
You want magazines with cars, workouts,
gizmos and photographs of Rio girls
whose skin must smell of oranges
and limes. I send you Windsor Castle,
Westminster, Big Ben, Churchill’s beaches,
sunny uplands, speeches and I vow to thee,
my country, all earthly things above
on postcards.
So, when you ask me what can mend
the pulsing in your ears, the mousetrap snap
of each grenade, the rifle’s nibbling
echoes of the nearest bullet yet,
I send you cheese, beef jerky, protein bars
and think this must be how it feels
to be looking at a rainbow as a child
steps in front of a car.