VERTIGO Poem by Dorta Jagić

on the first day of our training
you swung the trapeze for two astronauts under our feet.
I told you to stop. it was too high.
and three more years of shouting.
stop. wait. I'm getting sick.
underneath the inquisitive crowd was staring,
hungry for disasters, and for them you were
delivering litanies about physics and stars every morning.
in the mornings when you vomited the heavy wedding veil
you begged me not to look down ever.
I could fall.
and I, by pure chance,
did not look up anyway.
you shouted to them that I was your brightest star.
but when extinguished
the stars end up on the floor of a butchers' cold store.