Saying Goodbye to Bobby by Sharon Waller Knutson

Vultures feast on a coyote
carcass as we caravan
along the Superstition Highway
from Queen Valley to Superior
like we did for decades
with Bobby, the leader
of the band, to eat
Chimichangas and bean
burritos at Los Hermanos
and drink beer and play gigs
at Porters, Bobby’s growly deep voice
booming louder than a microphone
when he sang “Sixteen Tons” and “Lodi”
for six decades, now silenced.

Those of us who outlive our legend
inhale the crisp mountain air
as we stop along the side of the road
and climb the hill to the top of the tunnel
between Superior and Globe to honor
his last wishes. I see Bobby in his wool
Long Johns straddling a cloud canoe
in the blue sea sky on Top of the World,
his mouth making music as he strums
an acoustic guitar. Wanda with wings
flies beside him playing the bass
with Gene in his goatee playing the dobro
as he floats on his back next to Bobby.
As Bobby’s blue eyes peer over his bushy
beard, his straw cowboy hat he had worn
at every gig is whipped by the wind
and boomerangs down the cavern,
followed by his ashes swirling like smoke.
And we look up into the sky and Bobby is gone.



Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published nine poetry books, including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014), What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials and Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021), and Survivors, Saints, and Sinners and Kiddos and Mamas Do the Darndest Things (Cyberwit 2022). Her work has also appeared recently in Discretionary Love, Impspired, GAS Poetry, Art and Music, The Rye Whiskey Review, Black Coffee Review, Lothlorien Review, Silver Birch Press, Trouvaille Review, ONE ART, Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam, Spillwords, The Muddy River Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review, and The Five-Two.