Tom Cull grew up in Huron County (Treaty 29 Territory) and now resides in London, Ontario, where he teaches creative writing and serves as the city’s current Poet Laureate. Tom’s work has appeared in The Rusty Toque, The New Quarterly, The Word Hoard and been anthologized in Translating Horses (Baseline Press), Another London (Harmonia Press) and 150 Stories (Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario), and a forthcoming collection dedicated to water protection and social justice (MSU Press). His chapbook, What the Badger Said, was published in 2013 by Baseline Press, and his first book of poems, Bad Animals, was published by Insomniac Press in Spring of 2018. Since 2012, Tom has been the director of Thames River Rally, a grassroots environmental group that he co-founded with his partner Miriam Love, and their son, Emmett.
Swim
sunlight maps synapses
across the bottom of the pool
everyone loves the belugas
I stay in my lane
you move like a pool vac
sucking, thumping, erratic
it’s important to take
turns pretending things
are all right
the water lifts pressure
off your disks
we goggle search
the starling that shits the pool
same time every day
I practice flip turns
you glide
like a dock spider
a whistle blows
the lifeguard
has seen enough
From Bad Animals, Copyright Tom Cull, 2018.