tom daley
Aphorisms for Illness
Specter that traps the more and spars
with the less, a little rat child
shedding fleas, illness
widens the lines in any cracked epoch,
pounds the pepper
that can’t spike
to either placebo or luck.
Raw as a bottom line,
slick as a trenchcoat,
malady purifies
the customs of succulence.
Illness is the indefinite draw
of a leaky chimney,
the scruffy scab of a war god.
A machinist for over twenty years, Tom Daley leads writing workshops online and in the Boston area. His poetry has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, Fence, Crazyhorse, Witness, and elsewhere. His first book: House You Cannot Reach—Poems in the Voice of My Mother and Other Poems (FutureCycle Press).