July 23: Les Murray, "Vertigo", Feeling Really Old

Vertigo

by:  Les Murray

Last time I fell in a shower room

I bled like a tumbril dandy

and the hotel longed to be rid of me.

Taken to the town clinic, I

described how I tripped on a steel rim

and found my head in the wardrobe.

Scalp-sewn and knotted and flagged

I thanked the Frau Doktor and fled,

wishing the grab-bar of age might

be bolted to all civilization

and thinking of Rome’s eighth hill

heaped up out of broken amphorae.

When, anytime after sixty,

or anytime before, you stumble

over two stairs and club your forehead

on rake or hoe, bricks or fuel-drums,

that’s the time to call the purveyor

of steel pipe and indoor railings,

and soon you’ll be grasping up landings

having left your balance in the car

from which please God you’ll never

see the launchway of tires off a brink.

Later comes the sunny day when

street detail whitens blindly to mauve

and people hurry you, or wait, quiet.

________________________

Okay, ended up in the hospital yesterday with a case of vertigo. 

Yes, I felt really old when I was in that ambulance on the way to the hospital.  Thought I was dying.  I've gone from "ow, that hurts" when I get a headache to "this is how it all ends."  It doesn't help that my sister died of lymphoma of the brain.  So now, I've diagnosed myself with a brain tumor.

Saint Marty needs a nap.