We’d play with it, make snowballs,
pelt each other.

His breathing growls,
oxygen bottle life-line
clangs the dining room table,
stumbles to prove he can walk.

We didn’t know about asbestos.

Indented capitals list his jobs:
dates, firms, addresses.
He hawks phlegm.

His wife washes the dishes again,
looking out the window
at the odd touch of rain.

Tom Kelly

Appeared in :

Journal Poetry Magazine
Issue 36, Summer 2012
Editor Sam Smith
17. High Street
Maryport
Cumbria
CA 15 6BQ