Translations from the Flesh

Variations in Vertigo

60 Variations in Vertigo I’ve been listening to the burr of a stand-up bass Behind the brushes and the rolling arpeggios, Jaunt of the keys going down on a catquick piano. I’ve been thinking of birth and beyond, And the reasons for love. Love has no reason, And for that the moon spills more mercy than the mind. I remember the boys in their white tee shirts, cuffs Turned up on the dungarees, and the girls Smoking menthol, cool to the root of their tongues. Were those the years of goose flesh and hair of the dog, Grasshopper hearts idling in the summer nights? Or was I mistaken? I was mistaken, again and again. I’ve been lost in the simmer of cymbals, in a one-legged bass Sidesliding to the blues, in a drive of ivories That justify the lines like a razor through cocaine. I’ve been watching the day gain on the dark— Fat shadows to noon of no shadow, then the long lean of shade, Evening taking back the ground it gave to light. Should I muse on the four rivers of paradise Or another one, far from the garden, leaping off a cliff, A suicide of water frothing all the wild way down? I’ve been brooding over the fall of Orpheus, With his lyre and his bad luck and a taste for women Who ripped the songs out of his bloody head. Is there a wishbone in the drumstick, an endnote Plucked from the bottom of the bass? I’ve been following the stride of crooked fingers Across the grand, as if they walked a tightrope Trembling under them, high In the nervous certainty of the next step. ...