One Man's Sick is Another Man's Symphony
Coughed out their disapproval: they of the hoop-
skirt love letters, the mohair-smooth bicycle days.
An incapacity to swallow best delivered by
phlegm cycling through, their silvery heads just
bobbing—yes dearie, the answer is no. No
sacrilege harmonics, no scaling octatonic heights.
Too much cacophony, too soon. Meanwhile
woodwinds splinter down my cerebellum, blood
and eardrum bubble into fisticuffs and the first
violin is sharpening a scalpel. But so clear the
call: come breathe new pitches, dive in past host
rejection, love this weird apostle tonic all bitter
angles and burnt taste. Drown old cough in young
error that only seems. Mode medicinals are here.
Copyright © Suzanne Marie Hopcroft. White Whale Review, issue 4.1