Vertigo

I wanted to know about the bright star
in the southwest
so I took out my Night Sky app
and held it up to the heavens

“Are you Sirius”
in the constellation Canis Major
a ghastly dog
in the Night Sky?
yes you are

I pointed my phone at the ground
and gasped
to see Saturn, Neptune, and Mars
way down & out
through the earth
not up in the heavens at all

I tried to show you but
you said
“You’re going to give me
vertigo”

Up ahead
a car was blocking the sidewalk

Then you said
“I’m afraid I might run
straight into that car up there
and roll over”

And I said
“You’re not afraid—
you want to roll over that car!
Did you know vertigo
is caused not by the fear of falling
but the desire to fall?”

And you called this poetry
not science

And I admitted
I probably learned it
from the poets

whose utterances
are always true