Emotion Sickness

All wobbly all over —

it’s not so much vertigo

as an aversion to inversion. Carry on

kidding yourself it’s giddiness,

the bluff of your blood-

flow; some old neophobia.

The carrion you

forget to keep in mind, i.e.

the equation to your qualm, may be

in remembering the moment

of your memory,

however fractured that keepsake

has become — the closer

to broken the better though,

and confronting it by

donning a monocle helps

to make the ground

seem farther afield.

No need to be stable to drink

at this oblique

table. In oblivion

it’s easier being queasy any-

way, and damn near

impossible to assure

that certain bleak hauntings won't

see you stepping ashore, upside-

down the morning after,

a black-and-blue sea

hung over

the world.

(published in Snorkel, 2011)