Vertigo

By Marvin Cho

Tethered on marble steps

firm under a city gathered

by the Bard’s song and choral wail

to tears and awe moved the City enamoured.

And on the distant stage swooning bacchants

sing winesongs, then at their leisure yield

to koaxing Frogs or a lover’s heartburn

or to acts of grace on a Trojan field.

There I sat cross-legged and with critic’s eye

grasped at intentions, and on that happy day I

was with you.

But impelled by a god’s whisper

or by a chance curse I am swept

into the tempest sky and

in a many-turned journey careen

up-close through Ilion to Lesbos to

Cloud-Cuckoo-Land and the cragged Caucasus

in infinite swirls.

And though by floundering arms I

manage to set me on a homeward path

and finding me at home’s horizon

see white smoke rising like a pillar

I meet only an Underworld ever-fire

in a city by it ravaged to ancient ruin

as I, a star, whistle over.

Thus resigning to the mindless winds

I am borne to yet another faraway dreamland.

Because under the grey-green rubble

of the City I called home

though I tried

I could not find you.