Vertigo

Vertigo

The man in the hat
tails a blond
who is not a blond--
slim evidence
for a slender detective.

Meanwhile scenery:
giant sequoias, 
a fine art museum
and that big red metaphor
the Golden Gate Bridge.

Familiar places
grow unfamiliar:
bodies wander 
in and out of frame
in a red-velvet restaurant.

In the end
there is a tower--
as there must be--
in the end
there is an ascent.

Mission bells,
a final scream--
the blond falls,
no longer blond,
dies a third time.

Laws of gravity,
laws of time,
the newtonian detective
confronts 
a post-newtonian universe

Where pictures cannot lie,
but do anyway,
and even Death itself
cannot kill 
bad dreams.