VERTIGO

VERTIGO

VERTIGO

or if the medication wakes you early, you may reflect
more truly on the garden\'s ruin of late weeds among
black apples and the sunflowers’ awaited surrender
 
that itself is chemical; in dawn’s light you may know
that all around us pharmack mysteries are at work;
and reflect, not unhappily, that life is brief; no more
 
than the flaring, really, of Hydromedusa or light
from a luminous tide. You may sit and not cringe
remembering failures, swervings of will; dread
 
for now recedes before that brightness which attends
vertigo and leg-jitter, nail-flavor, nausea; it is
the body talking after all and now when morning comes
 
again crimson to the lawn toys’ stirring; when
schoolbus doors part again with their enduring sigh
you will rouse yourself from laboratory dreams
 
of sourceless hallways, mortars, ancient jars;
but not of martyred mice or primates, remember
as every cell in the vine dies another kind is born,
 
nematode or snowflake, as here in a dawn garden
you may hear the highway’s drone as oars in dark water
and calmly wait on winter never caring if it comes.