Katy Darby
Vertigo
“Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling
and the desire to fall”Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Because the daring suicide swims in black air
Vaults the handrail and walks onto nothing
Imagining wings of blood spread upon landfall
Because the deepsick diver dreams of sinking
Of bursting his own cyst of glass and crushing
His bones to shingle, eyeballs into marbles
I am warned against high and deep places
Because with desire and fear warring
Of drowning, of falling
Some madness still finds me believing
I can fly; can breathe water
Because what if I found myself floating
A miraculous fish in the ether?
And what, love, if you were that tower,
That ocean, love
That’s all I’m saying.
Page(s) 43
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