Flicker Vertigo

A parable unreels in air made luminous
with silver nitrate and dust. Glint struck
off a propeller tells a story begun
far from here.

Contrails corkscrew toward animals
cringing in their furs like dowagers
in a bad neighborhood. Two old pilots
play chess in the park, hearing aids off,
cataract eyes unable to track the ruffling
disturbance of newsreel memories.

In their wars, charged images flicked past
too fast to register. Information received
at 15 spins/second condenses thought
to pudding as it ricochets off the exits
with the perpetual threat of fire.

A riffle of stills can fool the eye
into a perception of continuous motion.
The brain fills in what’s missing, the blanks
between light and light, a corrugated sky
hanging over the theater’s false ceiling. Fists
full of red poppies push through
the scarred crust of winter.