Sometimes, in villages, you hear old men

Who tut that things are not how they should be.

They knew the boy. It had been a close call.

A few months before, he was still at school,

A cheeky sort, though decent in the round,

But one morning, flaunting teenage stubble,

He joined the beards and testosterone.

The bullet was not long coming. Alex,

Known as ‘tree trunk’, once the local hard man,

Scooped him up and shed tears. Doctors got there,

Just in time; now the boy has come back home.

He limps around, seeming suddenly old.

He doesn’t say much; his smile stops half way.

The limp may go. This new life is for good.