Bob Lucky

Kashmir

My friend and I ride horses up a mountain until a storm heading our way crests a ridge. The guide has us dismount, slaps the horses on their rumps, and says follow me. We run down the mountain and through a forest. “Jaldi! Jaldi!” The guide shouts. We’re going as fast as we can, bumping into and off trees, tripping over roots and stones. One must always trust the guide in emergencies, and this is an emergency — we are being chased down the mountain by the storm, and running out of breath and the will to live. “Aloo! Aloo!” The guide shouts in what seems like an alarm. At that point, I feel I’m going to die anyway so the threat of trampling some potato patch isn’t a real concern. 30 years later, reminiscing in the dim bar of a Delhi hotel, my friend says to me, “You do know that the guide was shouting bhaloo, bear, not aloo?”

another order
of potato chaat
growing cold
the story that could’ve been
all these years

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About the Author

Bob Lucky is the author most recently of My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019) and the chapbook Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), which was a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2018. Lucky lives in Portugal, where he is working his way through all the regional cheeses and wines.

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