Vertigo in Massachusetts

The jungle gym casts
Trapezoidal moon shadows
Onto the sloping ground

The Flying Wallendas
Triumph again
To the roar of our fantasy crowd

I remember her hands
Slipping through mine
The blood and her tears
On the hard frozen ground

For our album covers
She never once smiled
Everyone thought
She was depressed

But I knew the truth
It wasn't her mind
It was the tooth
Of a flightless Wallenda.

---

Whiskey and ice
On a warm summer day
A bead of condensation
Forms and falls
From the end of the glass
Onto the carpet below.

Her head on my shoulder
She started to cry
A single tear poised
On the tip of her nose
I kissed her and said
"I'll always be there to watch over you".
Knowing, even then, it was a lie.

---

Only in the past
Can we discover
The present.

Our future returns
To unearth
The artifacts.

How people must have lived
In this place
With these things.

Strange yet familiar
Forever retracing
The invisible outline below.

–

Amidst the noises
Of water and china
She sings, under her breath

The record sounds different
The production is dated
But the core of her voice remains.

She steps out of her shoes
Slips her arms around my neck
And we dance

It is familiar, yet strange
To be on this side
We never danced up on stage

But now here we are
Dancing together, turning slowly
In the darkening parlor of our past.