Poetry

Vertigo


We are upheld by small waters in our ears,
kept an even thirty-eight degrees, give or take;
one hundred pounds plus – assured equilibrium.
More evidence of things beyond our control.

Maintaining thirty-eight degrees, more or less,
despite the rain that drove through your jacket
(further evidence of things beyond my control)
you got into your two-door car, and I walked home.

I remember the rain soaking your gray jacket,
my heart counting its usual seventy beats per minute,
you in your car for two, me walking home
pretending that answers are things I never look for.

Beating seventy times a minute, my heart,
withstanding one hundred and twenty pounds of pressure,
pretends that answers are things I never look for,
even in the small waters of the ears that hold us up.

Emily Davidson is a poet from Saint John, New Brunswick, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her poems have appeared in The Fiddlehead, and are forthcoming with In the Red.